The Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) has described the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Iyorchia Ayu as delusional, after he posited that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) will cease to exist by March/April next year.
In a statement signed by its Chairman Niyi Akinsiju and Secretary Cassidy Madueke, BMO said that the former Senate President is not that old at 69 to constantly be making claims that have no basis in reality.
“From Dr Ayu’s first three speeches since he assumed office as PDP chairman in what looks like an interim arrangement, he has made a number of claims and utterances that show him either as delusional, or one who is happy to grandstand to his audience.
“We understand that as a new chairman of a party with so much baggage, he needs to say the ‘right’ things to those who brought him back to public limelight, but we still wonder how an experienced politician who has had a brief stint with an opposition party would so glibly predict that APC will disappear as a party in the next four months.
“Going through what Ayu was quoted as saying: that the ruling party is a contraption ‘only to win power but has no ideological base of what to do with power’, so, at the risk of repeating ourselves, we challenge him to tell Nigerians what PDP did with power in 16 years in terms of infrastructural development.
“Here is a man who in his inaugural address as chairman, listed the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC),the Debt Management Office (DMO) and the Bureau for Public Procurement (BPP) as PDP-era achievements, yet failed to mention a single legacy project his party did from start to finish in 16 years, inspite of an oil boom.
“In contrast, we have a ruling party which in six years, has, amongst others things, began a rail project-the Lagos to Ibadan railway line- from scratch and completed it, finished the Itakpe to Warri standard gauge rail line which had been previously abandoned for 33 years, as well as other rail and road projects ongoing and is on the verge of completing the Second Niger Bridge which PDP had constantly used as a campaign promise for 16 years”.
The group also charged Ayu to come clean on the consultancy he did for the Office of the National Security Adviser for which he got paid N345m in 2014.
Describing Ayu as a hungry man who eats in his sleep, BMO said: “in other climes, people like the former Senate President would have been too ashamed to step into the public in the aftermath of his confession that he indeed got part of the public funds set aside for arms procurement.
“This is because the inability to use funds duly appropriated to acquire military hardware led to Boko Haram transmuting from a rag-tag group to a formidable terror group that carved out a part of the country and proclaimed it as a caliphate in the PDP years.
“So, like many Nigerians, we are interested in knowing what form of consultancy Ayu rendered that led to him being paid N345m by the ONSA, as well as the bid process that led to the award, especially as he happily declared that his party mid-wifed the agency that is responsible for procurement processes”.
The group urged Nigerians to continue to reject PDP like they did in the last two elections because it still does not have anything to offer, aside from lining the pockets of its members at the expense of infrastructural projects and real development.