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Nigerian gov't slams opposition seeking president's resignation

Xinhua, September 15, 2016 Adjust font size:

The Nigerian government on Thursday slammed the opposition's "irresponsible" outburst asking President Muhammadu Buhari to quit.

In a statement made available to Xinhua in Lagos, Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, criticized the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which on Thursday called on Buhari and his team to return Nigeria to its state of booming economy before they assumed office in May, 2015.

The statement called the former ruling party a "shameless irritant" which is bent on distracting the government from its rescue mission.

The minister said while the government will continue to welcome constructive criticism, it had nothing to learn from a party that was in charge of the nation's affairs at a time of plenty, but ended up frittering away the commonwealth, looting the nation blind and setting the stage for today economic crisis, which the Buhari administration is working tirelessly to put an end to.

Mohammed said what the PDP has consistently put up as a vibrant economy under its watch was nothing but a bubble that was buoyed by massive corruption and chronic incompetence, an economy in which someone without any known means of earned livelihood would boast of 31.5 million U.S. dollars.

Nigeria's foreign exchange reserves plummeted from 62 billion dollars in 2008 to 30 billion dollars by 2015, at a time when oil prices were at a historic high, reaching a level of 114 dollars per barrel in 2014, said the minister.

By comparison, Indonesia, another oil producing economy with a high population, increased its reserves from 60 billion dollars in 2008 to 120 billion dollars in 2015, he said.

"The candid truth is that we failed under the successive PDP administrations to save for the rainy day, and we need to constantly remind ourselves of that so that we won't repeat the mistake," he added.

"We are indeed still trying to recover huge sums looted from the national treasury under the PDP's watch, with 15 billion U.S. dollars stolen from the defense sector alone," Mohammed said. Endit