* Over alleged woeful performance
The opposition Labour Party (LP) has asked the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and his running mate Kashim Shettima, to withdraw from the 2023 race.
It also asked the ruling party to resign from office, alleging woeful performance in office in the last 7 years.
Additionally, the Labour Party urged all APC candidates for governor, Senate, House of Representatives, and State assemblies to give up their bids before the 2023 elections.
The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Abayomi Arabambi, made this call through a statement to mark the 62nd anniversary of Nigeria’s independence.
In a statement released on Monday, Arabambi alleged that the APC-led government of President Muhammadu Buhari has pushed the country into debt and warned that if its candidates refuse to quit honorably, Nigerians would not hesitate to vote the APC out of office.
Arabambi said that in the first four months of 2022, the Buhari administration announced via the Budget and Planning Ministry that the expense of debt payment had outpaced its income in the four months under consideration.
He stated that out of the N17.32 trillion allocated for the entire year, the APC government spent a total of N4.2 trillion between January and April 2022.
“In these same four months, a sum of N285billion was earned as oil revenue, this represents a shortfall of 60.9% of the prorated figure of N730.12billion,” he said.
The LP spokesman quoted the Director-General of the Debt Management Office (DMO), Mrs. Patience Oniha, as having confirmed that Nigeria’s total public debt stock representing domestic and external debt stock profile as at March, 2022 stood at N41.60 trillion and N42.84trillion ($103.31billion) as at June 30, 2022.
According to Arabambi, if the debt amount is divided by the 200 million Nigerians, including the 50 million who are still unborn, “every Nigerian as at June 30, 2022 is indebted to the tune of N170, 000 each.”
He said that Peter Obi, the presidential candidate for the Labour Party, has frequently advised that the government’s borrowing must be at a statutory 5% of the previous year’s revenue, but said that the APC government disregarded Obi’s prudent advice.
He said: “It is necessary at this juncture for Nigerians to immediately join the cry for the demand for the resignation of the APC from the seat of government, now that it is not in doubt that it has finally ruined a substantial part of the future of Nigeria with its avoidable act of running the country into insolvency.
“The growing cluelessness of the APC in its incompetent management of the country’s economy is easily observed from the silly and unending oil subsidy deductions choreographed calculated scam.”
He lamented that the APC government is proposing N6.7 trillion to fund fuel subsidy, while it is planning to borrow N11 trillion to support the 2023 Budget expenses.
“Fellow Citizens, the painful truth is that N11 trillion can build from scratch, two good refineries for the country.
“Unless we, the being wickedly mortgaged Nigerians as a collective, pool resources and worth together to influence a change quickly in the political leadership of the country, it won’t be long when Nigeria will be turned into an extinct nation by the APC.
“LP has chosen to advise APC to immediately withdraw all its candidates from the 2023 elections and save itself the embarrassment of repeated public lies and falsehood that has become its main character in government.
“No one should be hesitant in becoming part of the political struggle to send APC out of Government if it fails to resign honourably right now.
“In view of this deliberate infractions, divisiveness, wickedness and lawlessness, Labour Party hereby calls for the immediate withdrawal of all APC candidates from the 2023 general elections so that Nigeria will not go into final extinction,” he submitted.