THE poor state of the country’s economy is the direct consequence of its mismanagement and the looting of the national treasury under the immediate past administration, the Federal Government said yesterday.

Segun Adeyemi, the senior adviser to Minister of Information and Culture Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said this in a statement issued yesterday in Abuja.

The statement stressed that the nation’s economic challenge, especially the depreciation in the naira exchange rate, should not be blamed on “any so-called mismanagement by the Buhari administration”.

This followed Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu’s comments over the “downward slide” of the nation’s economy.

Ekweremadu warned that unless urgent steps were taken by the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led Federal Government to arrest the situation, the country might witness a major revolution.

But Mohammed said: “If there was still any honour left among thieves, there is no way the leaders of a party under whose watch the nation’s economy suffered a monumental mismanagement and the Central Bank was turned to the ATM or piggy bank of a few people will have the temerity to insult a government that is working hard to turn things around or the citizens who are bearing the brunt of such mismanagement.

“It is now clear to all Nigerians that if the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had won the last general elections, Nigeria’s economy would not have survived one more month, considering the battering it received under the immediate past administration.

“It is, therefore, unconscionable that those who should show contrition and hunker down to avoid public opprobrium are the same ones pointing an accusing finger at the Buhari Administration.”

The minister described the comments credited to the Deputy Senate President as the clearest indication yet that the PDP and its leaders were still in denial about the massive looting they allegedly inflicted on the economy.

“Senator Ekweremadu complained about the depreciation of the Naira without telling Nigerians who ‘dollarised’ the Nigerian economy by bribing many individuals and groups with dollars during the last elections, thus inflicting a knock-out punch on the local currency. He also failed to tell Nigerians which government presided over the frenzied mop-up of dollars, either for ‘armsgate’ or for slush fund purposes, from the CBN to a point where it almost ran out of the hard currency,” he said.

The minister added that even though the Buhari administration met an economy that was in coma, it had refused to use that as an excuse for inaction.

Mohammed said the All Progressives Congress (APC) administration has been working hard on measures that would turn the economy around “and offer relief to the citizenry by lifting millions, not thousands, of people out of poverty through a massive social intervention policy”.

The minister explained that the outcome of the months of hard work would manifest soon in the 2016 national budget, which, he said, would give succour to millions of Nigerians who were reeling from fallout of the errors of the immediate past administration.

He advised the leaders of the PDP and members of the immediate past administration, who were allegedly involved in the emerging cases of “looting spree” to urgently return the funds they have stolen out of the commonwealth to government’s coffers.

“They are lucky that Nigerians are not as incautious as they are, otherwise they would not be able to walk around freely, not to talk of having the effrontery to fire darts at the government that inherited their rot or the people who are suffering the consequences.

“They looted the billions of naira that were allocated for the fight against insurgency, causing many innocent and patriotic soldiers to die needlessly, yet they are not remorseful. They looted the treasury to influence the last elections, doling out money as if it was going out of fashion, yet they continue to grandstand.

“In the latest revelation, a minister under the immediate past dispensation admitted to sharing N600 million to six chairmen of the Contact and Mobilisation Committee of the PDP for the last general elections, N300 million to an account given by a former PDP chairman, N200 million to a PDP governorship candidate and N100 million to a former PDP governor. This is just one case out of many; yet these revelations are but a tip of the iceberg of what Nigerians will hear in the days ahead,” Mohammed said.

The minister assured that despite the “mind-boggling revelations” about looting and the mismanagement by “self-styled economic wizards, the economy will bounce back under the watch of Buhari, who is bringing probity and transparency back into governance”.