Nigeria Presidency has asked Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to cover its face in eternal shame for the looting, plundering and squandering of the nation’s treasury by the federal it controlled for 16 years before Nigerians sacked it.
“Instead of being repeatedly impugned and castigated by the PDP and its agents for honestly telling Nigerians that the nation’s treasury has been immensely depleted and its resources looted or squandered under previous administrations of the PDP, President Buhari should be commended for the openness, transparency and accountability which he has now brought to the management of national funds.”
Reacting to the claim by the PDP National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh that the mony released by President Muhammadu Buhari was the one saved by the administration of Goodluck Jonathan, special adviser to President Buhari on media and publicity, Femi Adesina described such claim as “banal  and ludicrous.
“We also reject the banal  and ludicrous demand by the PDP Spokesman, Olisa Metuh that the PDP Government which was ousted by Nigerians  at the last general elections for running the country aground, be given some credit for “saving” the funds that were disbursed as part of the intervention package approved by President Buhari.
“Mr. Metuh’s claim that a significant amount of the funds came from savings accumulated in the Excess Crude Account and handed over to the Buhari Administration is completely false and deliberately intended to mislead the public.
“As we clearly stated yesterday, the funds approved by President Buhari for sharing to the three tiers of government on Monday came entirely from dividends and taxes paid to the Federation Account by the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Company (NLNG), not from the Excess Crude Account.
“The disbursed NLNG dividends and taxes  were paid into the Federation Account in June this year and confirmed by the Central Bank’s Statement to the Federal Government on July 7, 2015. The funds cannot therefore be considered “savings” by the Jonathan Administration which left office in May, 2015, as disingenuously claimed by Mr. Metuh.”
Adesina said that it was in keeping with the new spirit of openness in the running of the government that the President promptly disclosed the accrual of the NLNG dividends and taxes to the Federation Account at his recent meeting with State Governors and approved the convening of a special session of the FAAC to share it.
“As a state governor who was present at the meeting remarked, under past administrations, the states never had the benefit of such disclosures.
“Mr. Metuh and others who now ungratefully see Monday’s disbursement of the NLNG proceeds as their “legitimate” earnings  and not a “bailout” from the Federal Government may wish to tell Nigerians if such earnings were ever disclosed by the PDP Federal Government and paid to the states in the past.
“The public may also wish to note that the Buhari Administration itself has never referred to the actions which it has taken to ease the current financial difficulties of states as a “bailout.” [myad]

National Publicity secretary of All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Lai Mohammed has described President Muhammadu Buhari’s financial bailout plans for state governments controlled by his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and others to assist them pay salaries of their long-suffering workers with a multi-billion-naira package as a sign of his fatherly nature to the country.
In a statement in Abuja today, Lai Mohammed was particularly delighted that the President has shown that he is truly the father of the nation by eschewing partisanship in approving the intervention fund for all the states, irrespective of which parties they belong to.
”We say this because when states were financially handicapped during the tenure of the last federal government, opposition states were hung out to dry while states belonging to the then ruling PDP got generous bailouts,” it said.
APC said by his action, President Buhari has practicalized his deep understanding of the essence of governance which, more than anything else, is the about the well being of the citizenry.”
The APC spokesman noteed and that the special intervention fund approved by President Buhari was packaged without any external borrowing, despite the paucity of funds occasioned by the fall in the price of crude oil and the unprecedented profligacy of the immediate past administration that dried out the pot of national resources.
He said that early in the life of his administration, President Buhari is walking his talk by showing that with prudence, financial discipline and creativity, plugging financial leakages and a deep sense of patriotism, even the nation’s dwindling resources can still be more effectively utilized for the benefit of Nigerians, rather than be looted by thieving public officials who abuse their office.
Lai Mohammed described as uncharitable and a clear indication that shame has taken flight the situation in which those who created the rot that is now being cleared by President Buhari are the same ones daring to point accusing fingers at the government that inherited their rot.
”The PDP that spent the past 16 years plundering and pillaging Nigeria has boasted that the Nigerian people will soon come, cap in hand, to beg them to return to power. What delusion! What arrogance! Who presided over the looting and the mismanagement of public funds that made it impossible for the nation to absorb the shock of the falling oil prices? Who depleted the Excess Crude Account (ECA) without authorization? Who has degraded the standard of living of
Nigerians?”
APC spokesman said the multi-pronged package approved by President Buhari includes the sharing by the Federal and State Governments of $1.7 billion out of the $2 billion remaining in the ECA; the sharing of about $2.1billion sourced from the LNG’s payment to the Federation Account; and a CBN-packaged special intervention fund that will offer financing to the states, ranging between N250 billion to N300 billion, as a soft loan available to states to access for the purposes of paying backlog of salaries.
Also, the President has approved a debt relief programme that will help states restructure their commercial loans currently put at over N680 billion. The implication is that the life span of such loans will be extended, while reducing the states’ debt-servicing expenditures, thus leaving the states with enough resources – which otherwise would have been removed at source by the banks – to meet their monthly salary obligations, among others.
”History is repeating itself before our very eyes. Some 31 years ago, Buhari, then as a military head of state, also inherited a huge national rot similar to what has been bequeathed to it by the NPN government and had to approve 480 million Naira for the payment of arrears of workers’ salaries. Truly, the President is a man of destiny.”
He said that with thousands of workers made destitute by the frittering away of the commonwealth under a rapacious and wasteful PDP government now being given a new lease of life, their purchasing power being boosted and the nation’s economy being reflated, the change which the President and his party promised the nation has just begun.
”We thank Nigerians for voting the APC into power at the centre and for believing in us even when the horizon became hazy, not out of our making but because of the misdeeds of the past. By their relentless support for President Buhari and the APC, Nigerians have indeed demonstrated that what is worth fighting for is worth defending.” [myad]