PDP Sets 2019 Agenda, Promises Single Digit Lending Rate

• Says APC can’t win in Taraba, Delta

By Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has identified deliberate policies that will guarantee single-digit commercial lending rate across all productive sectors, as one of its economic blueprint, immediately it is re-elected into office in 2019.

The main opposition party has also asked the National Chairman of APC, Adams Oshiomhole, to stop thinking that his party can win elections in Taraba and Delta States in 2019

In what seemed like a policy agenda for the 2019 electioneering campaign, the PDP said its economic blueprint would make a turnaround of the prevailing double digit being operated by the APC-controlled government.

In a statement issued yesterday by the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, the party also said it plans to push policies that engender increased local content in all critical sectors.

The statement quoted the party’s spokesman as having stated this when a delegation from a coalition of small and medium enterprise owners paid him a visit in his office in Abuja.

Ologbondiyan said the initiative was targeted at providing the much needed interventions in key sectors, including power, agriculture, manufacturing, construction, real estate, transport, solid mineral mining, oil and gas, education, retailing, among others, without which the economy cannot rebound.

According to Ologbondiyan, “ there is no way economic activities can rebound unless we put our people back to work. Over 20 million Nigerians have been put out of work by the APC and many more are underemployed. Families are under stress and citizens have been subjected to abject poverty by the Buhari’s administration.

“Our recovery plan involves a concerted effort to reopen the market and encourage economic environment that will grant our investors and entrepreneurs affordable credit facilities to favourably compete and thrive,” he said.

He said the blueprint includes the formulation and implementation of policies that will guarantee single digit commercial lending rates as well as increased local content in all critical sectors.

“This will involve an immediate review of all tight monetary policies of the APC, including obnoxious foreign exchange and import regulations, multiple taxation, exorbitant tariffs on essential services, particularly in power and communication, as well as other unnecessary economic bottlenecks that are currently stifling small scale entrepreneurship, industrial activities and general economic growth.

“Unlike the APC’s exclusionist style, the PDP will run an all-inclusive economic system that guarantees an open market operation and return a people-focused pricing regime. This was part of the policy thrust with which the PDP grew our economy to become one of the fastest growing in the world before the unfortunate incursion of the APC.

“Come 2019, the PDP will revamp our economy and put our citizens back to the path of prosperity”, he said.

In his speech, the leader of the delegation, Tosin Olaoye, commended the PDP for its rebuilding effort, adding that Nigerians are eager for the return of the party to governance in 2019.

He said Nigeria as a country fared better under the PDP due to its economic initiatives and people-oriented policies, all of which, he emphasized, are lacking under the APC.

Olaoye said the APC has shown that it has no capacity and competence to run an economy as resilient as Nigerian but thrives on false promises, deceit and propaganda, which has brought the country to its knees in the last three years.

Meanwhile, the PDP has asked Oshiomhole, to stop thinking that APC can win elections in Taraba and Delta States in 2019.

The party said Oshiomhole should concentrate his energies on saving his APC from imminent collapse rather than attempting to bully and override the people of the two states, ahead of 2019 elections.

In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, PDP said it was an assault on the sensibilities of the people of the two states for Oshiomhole to think that they will vote for the same APC, which has failed to protect their lives

“Perhaps Oshiomhole mistook Delta and Taraba states 2019 elections for the APC 2018 National Convention where President Buhari bullied and intimidated delegates to foist him as National Chairman, without proper election,” PDP said.

PDP said Nigerians knew that the two states are major strongholds of the PDP for which the party clearly won the 2015 governorship and presidential elections.

According to the statement, PDP, in 2015, enjoyed overwhelming followership, which has now tripled in the last three years, signposting the party’s inevitable victory in 2019, particularly due to the sterling performance of Governors Ifeanyi Okowa and Darius Ishaku in delivering good governance and development to the people.

“We are, however, not unaware of Oshiomhole’s pattern of deploying false assertions, propaganda and instigating confusion, but we assure him that such cannot work in Delta and Taraba states, no matter the machination, as the people are solidly behind the PDP in our quest with majority of Nigerians to rescue our nation from the clutches of the APC,” PDP said.

“Instead of wasting his time fixating on PDP states, we advice Oshiomhole to direct his energy on how to save his crumbling party from the misfortune of being stuck with an unpopular candidate in President Buhari, who has become the fixed omen of inescapable electoral humiliation of the APC in 2019.

“Even Oshiomhole, who by now ought to have surrendered himself to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over allegations of humongous corruption and stealing of public funds hanging on his neck, knows that he is a derelict salesman of a very bad product, but had to believably take up the job to save himself from prosecution,” PDP added.

The PDP asked the APC to perish the thoughts of muzzling the electoral process at any level in 2019, as such will be stiffly resisted by Nigerians.