Atiku accused of economic blueprint theft by FG

According to Lai Mohammed, minister of information and communication, Atiku Abubakar’s economic plan, which he presented as his party’s presidential candidate, was copied.
The Minister described the former Vice President’s plan as a “crude attempt” to mimic the Buhari-led administration while speaking at a press conference on Thursday at the National Press Centre in Abuja.
He stated: “Last week, the Presidential Candidate of the main opposition People’s Democratic Party former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, spoke on his economic blueprint at an event in Lagos.
“Let me say straight away, that the so-called blueprint is a crude attempt at copying all that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has done, especially in the areas of job creation, infrastructure, financing, relationship with the private sector, poverty reduction, debt management and the overall management of the economy”.
Mohammed found it shocking that the opposition party, which had frequently criticized the actions of the current administration, would base its program on what the administration was doing.
Regarding the issue of financing infrastructure, Mohammed claimed that the Buhari administration has broken the curse by utilizing cutting-edge programs like the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund, which is utilized to finance infrastructure projects all over the nation.
Regarding power, he stated that the Presidential Power Initiative partnership between Siemens and the Federal Government was the most ambitious project in the industry. The three-phase partnership project was to deliver 7,000 MW in the first phase, 11,000 MW in the second phase, and 25,000 MW in the third phase.
He referred to the former vice president’s assertion that the country’s economic future was “bleak” as pure scaremongering, adding that the economy had recovered from two recessions under the leadership of President Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) in the five years between 2016 and 2020. He continued by saying that the economy had grown by 3.54% in real terms in Q2 2022, up from 3.11% in Q1 2022, continuing its recovery from the 2020 recession for the seventh straight quarter.
Mohammed got to the conclusion that Atiku’s blueprint was just a reel of the accomplishments of the Buhari-led administration since it took office in 2015. He said that replicating the blueprint was proof of those successes.
“Let me say that I am not really surprised that His Excellency, the former Vice President only reeled out, in his so-called Economic Blueprint, what we have been doing in the past seven years. That’s what you get from someone who leaves the country after losing an election, only to parachute into town when another election is due. It is a measure of how much this Administration has achieved in all sectors and the best the opposition could do is to seek to copy what the Administration has been doing.
“For the record, there is nothing we have said today on the achievements of this Administration that we haven’t said before. No amount of deceit, misrepresentation, scaremongering, distortion of facts or derogation can subtract from the visible achievements of the Buhari Administration”.
He continued by saying that none of the administration’s triumphs or accomplishments should be disparaged by the opposition party, which he claimed lacked creativity and was copying a previous administration it had mocked.

GOGAN Media