Credit us for bailout fund – PDP

The national leadership of the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party, has claimed credit for the money released by President Muhamadu Buhari to states as bailout funds.
It said the release of over N804billion from the nation’s coffers as bailout to states and local governments across the country would go a long way in alleviating the sufferings of the Nigerian workers in various states of the federation, most of whom, it said, have been without their wages for some months.
PDP National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, in a statement in Abuja on Tuesday, said the party however “notes that a significant amount of the bailout came from savings accumulated in the Excess Crude Account handed over to the Buhari-led All Progressives Congress’ administration by the past PDP-led administration.
Metuh said it was however unfortunate that President Buhari had told the international community and Nigerians that he might not be able to perform in his first 100 days in office because he met almost an empty treasury.
He said the release of the funds by the President could have been an indication that he(Presidrnt Buhari) was misdirected earlier on.
Metuh said his party would be expecting the President to behave like a true leader by correcting the first impression and statement he made concerning the true situation of the treasury.
He said, “This development is in clear contradiction to the earlier impression given by President Buhari to Nigerians and the international community that they should not expect much from his administration in its first one hundred days because according him, upon assumption of office, he met a virtually empty treasury.
“We want to believe that given the President’s release of such huge amount, he may have realised that he was earlier misdirected on the actual financial state of the nation at the time he took over. In this regard, we expect the President, as a respected statesman, to do the needful to correct that erroneous impression.
“Furthermore, we expect President Buhari’s APC administration, as direct beneficiary of this savings initiated by past PDP administrations, to appreciate the strategic importance of always saving for rainy days and as such guarantee prudent and transparent management of the nation’s resources now under its care.”
Metuh, therefore, charged the APC as a party in government to put its house in order, desist from injecting confusion and distracting the President from settling down to form a government and face the enormous challenges of governance, especially the implementation of his long list of campaign promises to Nigerians.
He added that Nigerians “are no longer interested in insults, tirades and propaganda but in actions and policies that would move the nation forward,” a stance, he alleged, the APC has has failed to recognise.