The DG says Nigeria has not recovered from the recklessness and corruption that were perpetrated during the 16 years of the PDP administration.
Director-General of the Voice of Nigeria, Osita Okechukwu has warned Nigerians against returning the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to power in 2023.
Okechukwu asked Nigerians not to trust the party’s plan of rescuing the country from the ruling party, saying promoters of the party have an incurable appetite for corruption and a history of mismanaging the economy.
The DG said this in an interview in Abuja, on Sunday, November 28, 2021, while reacting to a rescue plan the PDP said it was putting to rid Nigeria of the socio-economic woes that befell Nigeria under the administration of the ruling All Progressives Congress.
“How can Nigerians trust our sister political party, the PDP, given their antecedents riddled with trust deficit? We know that times are hard; I think it is better to allow APC to fix Nigeria. Where does one start from?” he said.
He added that the country has not fully recovered from the economic assault, recklessness, and corruption that were perpetrated during the 16 years of the PDP administration.
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Okechukwu also asked, “Can we forget the squandermania of $23 billion Greenfield Refineries — one meant for Lagos, one for Kogi, and one for Bayelsa? A golden opportunity costs our economy.
“Recall that on March 19, 2015, Conference of Nigerian Political Parties queried Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, then Minister of Finance thus,
‘May we under the Freedom of Information Act 2011, request for the full disclosure of transactions concerning the three Greenfield refineries and petrochemical plant contract awarded on 13th May 2010 by President Goodluck Jonathan to Chinese State Construction and Engineering Corporation Limited, at $23 billion meant to be located at Bayelsa, Kogi and Lagos States.’
“Secondly, why are they dead on arrival as six years down the line, neither the three Greenfield refineries nor petrochemical plant is under construction. The three Greenfield refineries one understands, on completion, were to add 750,000 barrels per day capacity to Nigeria’s refining infrastructure and create over a million jobs.”
He further explained that the Greenfield Refineries fiasco happened when Nigeria’s Excess Crude Account had over $40 billion and the China State Construction Corporation even upped their equity to 80 percent.
According to him, the outcome is that $15 billion was fleeced from the national treasury annually for the importation of refined petroleum products for over a decade.
