FORMER President Goodluck Jonathan said on Friday that a statement credited to the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola on February 1 has vindicated the former administration on the management of the economy.
Jonathan, in a statement on his behalf by his Special Assistant on New Media, Reno Omokri, said that the previous declarations that President Muhammadu Buhari inherited a collapsed economy were demolished when Fashola stated clearly on February 1 that Buhari inherited one of the fastest growing economies in the world.
The statement indicated that since Buhari took over on May 29, 2015, both the President and the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed had projected false narratives to the effect that the Jonathan administration and the Peoples Democratic Party, destroyed Nigeria’s economy and handed over a collapsed polity.
The statement quoted the President’s spokesman, Garba Shehu as saying on August 14, 2017, thus:
“With due respects to the former President Dr Goodluck Jonathan, these are the facts about the economy you left behind, in case you have forgotten. I hope this will help to erase the wrong statement credited to you at your party, the PDP Convention at the Eagle Square last weekend that you handed to President Buhari a robustly healthy economy. Let me start by reasserting an obvious statement, which is that the President Muhammadu Buhari administration was handed an economy ravaged by years of mismanagement and corruption.”
It also quoted Lai Mohammed as also saying on January 26, 2018, as saying in an interview with the Sun: “I think it will be tragedy for this country for PDP to come back because they have not even apologised to the nation for how they had destroyed our economy,
destroyed our infrastructure, destroyed our quality, and so far from their campaign, ask them how they will do it better when they get there.”
The statement, however, indicated that Jonathan was vindicated when Fashola in an attempt to provide excuses for lack of stable electricity in the country made a slip that justified Jonathan’s government.
The statement read: “However, in keeping with the principle that no matter how far and fast falsehood has travelled, it must eventually be overtaken by truth, Babatunde Raji Fashola, the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, has exposed both his boss, President Buhari, and his colleague…Lai Mohammed, as liars who will say anything, no matter how untrue, to cling to power and demonise former President Jonathan and the PDP.
“Speaking on February 1, 2018, at a civil society engagement workshop on the Power Sector Recovery Programme in Abuja, Fashola in trying to defend himself from allegations of ineptitude as regards the epileptic power supply in the country ended up vindicating both Dr Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP, albeit unintentionally.
“At that event, Mr Fashola said: “We hear all our so-called experts who say (non-availability of) power is why the economy of Nigeria is not growing. That is not factual and it is not correct. At the time when we had less power in 2013 and 2014, the economy of this country was growing at seven per cent per annum.
“We had less power then than we have now, but the economy was growing.”
“Nigerians can now see that Mr Fashola, in a Freudian slip, was made by God, to expose the truth that his boss, his party and his colleagues have been trying to suppress for the past three years, namely that former President Jonathan developed and grew Nigeria’s economy at an unprecedented and consistent growth rate of over 6% per annum and handed over a thriving economy that was projected by CNNMoney to be the third fastest growing economy in the world when Dr Jonathan handed over power to President Buhari.
“Unfortunately, due to the ineptitude of the Buhari administration, a booming economy became an economy in recession in just one year under the All Progressive Congress.
“And this is not the only recent example of the vindication of former
President Jonathan by the Buhari administration.
“Only recently, lying Lai Mohammed responded to the letter by former President Olusegun Obasanjo by claiming that the Buhari administration had increased the nation’s foreign reserve from the $24 billion it met it to $40 billion.
“The question for Lai Mohammed is this: From who did Buhari inherit the $24 billion? From ghosts? From Killer Fulani herdsmen?
In light of the vindicating statements by Raji Fashola, I hereby call on both President Muhammadu Buhari and Lai Mohammed to tender an unreserved apology to former President Jonathan and the PDP and to henceforth commit to returning Nigeria’s economy at least to the state that they met it when Dr Jonathan handed over power to them on May 28, 2015.”
