The Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) has on Wednesday said that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) did not leave behind a $550 billion economy when it lost power to the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2015.

The group, in a statement signed by its Chairman, Niyi Akinsiju, and Secretary, Cassidy Madueke, stated that the claim by the party’s leaders is at variance with facts on ground.

According to the group, while they knew that PDP elements are used to pulling numbers from the air, they did not expect that they would cook up figures on the state of the economy in May 2015 to deceive Nigerians.

It said it all began in December last year with former Aviation Minister Osita Chidoka dropping the cooked figure on the PDP-era economy, before governors elected on the party platform jumped on it.

The BMO said it is surprising that the PDP Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, who postures as an academic had also jumped on the bandwagon when he could have put his research skills into use.

It said Nigeria’s GDP in 2015 was $486 billion, not the $550 billion the opposition party is bandying around like a badge of honour.

According to him, “We make bold to say that virtually all the data the party rolls out are contrived to deceive unsuspecting Nigerians.”

The BMO argued that contrary to the rosy picture that PDP chieftains had been painting, the economy was on a decline at the time that President Muhammadu Buhari was sworn in.

According to him, no fewer than 27 states were finding it difficult to pay staff salaries as of 2014 and it was not until the APC-led administration came on board that the states were given bailouts to stay afloat.

The statement further added that in 2013, Nigeria’s poverty figure was 112 million out of a population of 165 million people, according to World Bank figures.
It said today, the Buhari administration has cycled millions of people out of poverty with the figure now put at about 88 million.

He said a large chunk of the country’s debt was paid off by a PDP administration in 2006, but as of May 2015, Nigeria’s public debt was $63 billion even when the country made $381.9 billion from crude oil sales alone between 2010 and May 2015.

The group, therefore, challenged PDP leaders to show Nigerians how they spent what the country realised as well as funds in the Excess Crude Account, saying there is indeed little or no infrastructure to show for the oil boom.

BMO urged Nigerians to continue to reject the former ruling party because it has nothing to offer.