APC HAVE COME AGAIN — UNVEILS “RENEWED HOPE 2023” MANIFESTO : ANOTHER DECEPTION ?

                        By
         Emmanuel Gandu

“The future of Nigeria is safer in the hands of APC” — President Muhammadu Buhari at the unveiling of the APC manifesto on Friday, 21/10/2022.

Fellow compatriots, Nigeria’s destiny has been in the hands of APC in the last 8 years (since 2015). Why should 200 million Nigerians be entrusted to APC for another festival of failure with catastrophic consequences.
The APC government have caused untold hardship, agony and death to this generation and those yet unborn.
This discourse is an attempt to present the score card with facts and figures, of the APC promises in only 5 of the numerous point agenda as contained in the APC party manifestoe of the past 8 years from 2015 – 2022 :

1. PETROLEUM
   “APC government will build one refinery every year for the next 4 years”
   (a) Nigeria’s 3 refineries at Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna have a combined refining capacity of 445,000 barrels per day but none of them have produced one drop of oil petrol, neither have Nigeria seen an added refinery since APC came to power from 2015 to 2022.
   (b) Under APC watch, Nigeria have not even been able to mine her crude to meet the 1.8 billion per day OPEC approved quota. This dismal performance is in spite of a Major General Muhammadu Buhari being a former Petroleum Minister under the Olushegun Obasanjo’s military government, and even today as President Muhammadu Buhari doubles as Minister of Petroleum.
   (c) Nigerians have been subjected to excrutiating and persistent scarcity of petroleum products like premium spirit (petrol), diesel, gas, Jet A1 (Aviation fuel), and Kero.
   This has led to massive importation of these commodities leading to a costly and scam subsidy regime.
2. EDUCATION
   “An APC government will give up to 20% of the National budget to the education sector”
   (a) Far from this promise, the APC Federal government in 2015 allocated only 10.79% of Nigeria’s budget to education sector.
   By 2016, this figure dropped drastically to 6.7% . This downward trend continued up to 2021 when it further nose dived to 5.68% , and further down to its lowest ebb of 5.39% in 2022.
   (b) ASUU in 2018 embarked upon a 90 days strike.
   In 2020 they went on a 270 days (9 months) strike.
   ASUU again in 2022 went on an initial 4 weeks warning strike, proceeding immediately from there on to a 8 months continuation making another total of 9 months (270 days).
   These strikes were as a result of government refusal to keep already signed agreements entered into with Academic Staff Union of Universities on funding, provission of better learning facilities, etc.
   (c) In Nigeria today, there are well over 20 million out-of-school children. This figure is constantly on the rise more so as that primary, Secondary, and tertiary schools in most parts of Northern Nigeria have remained closed due to terrorism and kidnapping.
   (d) No Nigerian University is rated among the top 29 on the African continent, but South Africa, Egypt, Ghana, Morocco, etc provide the lead while Nigeria’s Ibadan and Covenant trail at 30, and Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike is ranked at no.35.
3. CORRUPTION
   “An APC government will give zero tolerance to corruption as we shall eliminate corruption in our country.”
   (a) In 2020 the APC government under Buhari’s watch as Petroleum Minister spent #10.23 billion on repair of the country’s refineries that ended up processing zero crude.
   (b) Again in 2021, this APC government approved and spent $1.5 billion to repair Port Harcourt refinery but nothing was achieved.
   (c) SERAP in a suit number FHC/L/CS/806/2022 filed in the federal high court Lagos is seeking an order of Mandamus to compel Muhammadu Buhari to investigate the spending of 1.48 trillion dollars reportedly on 4 refineries between 2015 and 2020 (NNPC Monthly Financial Statement)
   (d) Transparency International in its 2021 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) ranked Nigeria as low as 154th position out of 180 countries surveyed.
   (e) A whopping sum of $26.5 billion which the federal government had sunk on a Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) of the 3 refineries at Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna, according to energy experts, should have been used to build 3 new refineries of same sizes/capacity each, and at same location.
   (f) Ahmed Idris, the APC appointed Accountant General of the Nigeria embezzled the sum of #209 billion in a theft discovery.
   (g) The allegation that the federal government of APC spent #5.9 billion to train only 177 youths in smartphone repairs cannot be explained by the APC government.
   (h) SERAP in 2022 is seeking the probe of the spending of #11 trillion Electricity Fund.
   (i) Most of the corrupt politicians in other political parties facing EFCC investigation have found a safe heaven in APC.
   According to erstwhile APC Chairman Adams Oshiomhole, any corrupt politician who defects to APC will have his “sins forgiven.”
   (j) If not a case of corruption, how would the CBN be alleged to have spent #58.6 billion to print 2.5 billion naira notes in 2020.
   (j) According to Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed, government in 2022 purchased vehicles worth #1.4 billion to help Niger Republic tackle insecurity. Was this funds appropriated in the 2022 budget ?
   (k) In another attempt to cover up fraud in government, stories emerged that termites had eaten up #17.128 billion expenditure evidence at the NSITF.
4. SECURITY
   “Boko Haram will be eliminated in the first 3 months APC government”
   (a) The World Terrorism Index (2020) ranked Nigeria as the 3rd most terrorised country in the world.
   (b) The APC had promised Nigerians before the 2015 elections that Nigeria will not only be safer but that the country will flow with milk and honey. However, 8 years and still counting, Nigeria is flowing with blood and fire.
   (c) Never in the history of Nigeria, even during the 30 months civil war have terrorists taken over the whole country as experienced from 2015 – 2022, with the military unable to defend the territorial integrity of the Nigeria.
   The military have become a toothless bull dog that is compromised and overwhelmed.
   (d) In August 2022, the United Nations had warned that 5,000 Nigerian children may die of starvation by October 2022 due to lack of food from the farms as a result of in – accesibility arising from insecurity. As a consequence, the United Nations is reportedly shopping for #700 billion to feed 5.5 million women, children in Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe states.
5. ECONOMY
   (a) Research findings of the World Economic Index 2021 and 2022 ranks Nigeria as the Poverty Capital of the world.
   (b) According to the Debt Management Office (DMO) Nigeria’s public debt stock hits # 39.56 trillion.
   (c) Nigeria’s 2022 projected revenue is very low at #10 trillion, but the APC government operates a total annual budget of #17 trillion.
   With a #4 trillion oil subsidy budgeted for same 2022, and a #6.7 trillion estimated for 2023 oil subsidy, the country is no doubt facing a gloomy economic downward trend.
   (d) Meanwhile, the NNPC in September 2022 told Nigerians that 94% of revenue from oil earnings in August 2022 was spent on subsidy payment.
   (e) Lamentably, Nigerians have been wallow in abject poverty, rising unemployment, collapse of manufacturing industries, high cost of goods and services, and other attendañt clogs in the nation’s wheel of progress which the APC have yet to find solutions to.

It therefore remains to be seen whether Nigerians will allow themsalves to be scammed for the third time by voting for the APC in 2023 or make a choice to vote for a party that will ensure a better future for even the unborn child.

Peace. 🙏
22/10/2022