BEVERLY HILLS, October 19, (THEWILL) – Former president, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan has reminisced on how he lost the 2015 presidential poll, noting that prominent Nigerians joined his detractors to peddle falsehood against his adminstration.
He pointed out that in their desperation to get him out of office, those in the opposition during his five-year reign as President elevated lies and propaganda to a professional level.
Jonathan made this known in Abuja on Thursday when he received a Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, national chairmanship aspirant, Prof. Tunde Adeniran, in his office, asserting that the Muhammadu Buhari administration has failed in governance.
“The PDP administration for 16 years did well, but this administration has done nothing; the administration is full lies and propaganda,” he declared, wondering as well: “those who were giving us all kinds of names, what have they done?”
The former president also attacked erstwhile Lagos governor now Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, for failing to fix the power sector within the period his party had been in power as he expected of the PDP.
“A state governor (then) said any serious government should be able to fix the power within six months. Today, APC has been in power for how many years? Fortunately, the then governor (Fashola) is in the APC government as a minister,” he said.
He disclosed that at the inception of his presidency in 2010, his administration discovered that the country’s economy faced challenges and put measures in place to address them.
The immediate past president said one of the measures adopted by his administration to address the economic challenges was the removal of fuel subsidy in January 2012.
He then pointed out that apart from barefaced lies and pernicious propaganda against the PDP-led government, his detractors also hired people to oppose the policy.
According to him, “From 2010, the economy was challenged and we needed to do some things, but, we decided to wait until after the 2011 election. It was after the election that we wanted to deregulate because it was very clear one of the problems was the issue of subsidy. We discovered that it was being abused and we set up forensic auditors. They brought me a report that we are going to save about N40 billion (from deregulation).
“These people hired all kinds of people and came against us. We raised the pump price from N67 to N97. That time, the global price of crude oil was going for over $100, but, when the price of oil dropped to about $70 per barrel, we reduced pump price from N97 to N87 and they attacked us; that it should have been lower.”
Jonathan noted that “a serving minister (in the APC government) gave an illustration that if a bag of flour cost N10,000 and a loaf of bread is N100, if that bag of flour costs lower, the price of bread is supposed to reduce.
“When the price of crude oil was going for over seventy something dollars per barrel, we brought down the pump price of fuel to N87. Now that the global price of crude oil goes for $53, the pump price is N143.
“Those who attacked us (then) did not say anything because they have seen it,” he said, wondering why those who attacked his government have kept quiet “now that the pump price of fuel is N145”.
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