2019 budget: Buhari’s booing, vote of no confidence, says PDP 

The Peoples Democratic Party Presidential Campaign Organisation has described the booing of President Muhammadu Buhari by lawmakers during his 2019 budget presentation as a vote of no confidence passed on him.

The campaign organisation lamented that President Buhari could not give credible account of the performance of the 2018 budget, even as it insisted that the 2019 budget is replete with fictitious figures and unrealistic projections.

Addressing a press conference in Abuja on Wednesday, Kola Ologbondiyan, Director, Media & Publicity, PDP Presidential Campaign Organization, said the President’s budget speech “was full of false performance indices, claims of non-existent projects, half-truths, bogus fiscal projections, beguilements and new list of fake promises, which Nigerians have since seen through”.

He dismissed claims in some quarters that PDP lawmakers instigated the jeering and booing of the President, insisting that legislators across party lines were disenchanted with him, having failed to implement less than 20 percent of the 2018 budget.

Ologbondiyan said: “The spontaneous action of the lawmakers, at the joint session of the National Assembly, is a resounding and unambiguous vote of no confidence and unmistaken expression of President Buhari’s rejection by the Nigerian public, across the divides, who are fed up with his incompetent, divisive and corrupt administration, which has brought so much hunger, starvation, escalated violence and bloodletting to our country.

“The open rejection of President Buhari by the lawmakers, representing all the federal constituencies and senatorial zones across our country, shows that Mr. President no longer enjoys the support of Nigerians across the country; that he no longer has any political foothold and only awaits a crushing defeat in the 2019 general election.

“What else do Nigerians want from a President, who has openly confessed his lack of capacity to find solutions to the myriads of problems his administration brought and on that note promised Nigerians more sufferings and hardship in the coming year? No wonder he was booed by the lawmakers”.

The campaign council also condemned the $1 billion earmarked for fuel subsidy in the 2019 budget, describing as ridiculous the N60 million liters daily fuel consumption in Nigeria.

“By today’s (Wednesday’s) experience, it should be clear to Mr. President and the APC that the game is up and that Nigerian are no longer ready to accept an incompetent administration that thrives only in propaganda, falsehood and deceit. Our citizens are very eager to usher in a new era of credible, transparent and competent government; the very reasoan they are rallying behind the PDP Presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar,” the Council spokesperson noted.