A member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Katch Ononuju, has countered a claim made by Segun Oshinaga of the All Progressives Congress (APC), that President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration will perform better in his second term.
Oshinaga, had while appearing as a guest on Channels Television’s Politics Today, called for all hands to be on deck to build a greater Nigeria.
“The elections are over. Let’s join hands together, let’s build this country. I’m sure the President will assemble the best and the brightest and do much better than he did in the first term
“And I believe that Nigerians have every right to look forward to the next four years as an important term and period for our country and economy,” he stated.
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But reacting to Oshinaga’s comment in apparent contrast, Ononuju describes the claim as rhetoric, asking Nigerians if they are better off now than they were in 2015.
He claimed that the citizens enjoyed what he described as an economic expansion under the previous PDP governments.
“It’s just all about rhetorics and all I will tell Nigerians is for them to judge. How were you four years ago?” he asked.
“Are you better now than you were four years ago? No. Look at the north, there is war everywhere. Insecurity has overtaken over everywhere.
“Under PDP, we had the longest period of economic expansion in Nigeria’s history. Under the PDP, we had the longest period of political stability in Nigeria’s history. Under the PDP, we grew our economy to become the largest economy in Africa,” he stated.
Both PDP and APC members had argued the growth report released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) indicating that Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has grown by 2.01% in the first quarter of 2019.
When comparing the first quarter of 2018, which recorded real GDP growth rate of 1.89%, NBS noted that the first quarter 2019 growth rate represented an increase of 0.12% points.