Atiku blasts Buhari over $500,000 donation

The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has described the federal government’s $500,000 donation to Guinea Bissau, as wasteful.

According to him, it was one of the ways the President Muhammadu Buhari administration brought a once thriving economy to its knees.

The FG, through the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chief Geoffrey Onyeama, had announced the donation of the sum, over 350 electoral kits and seven vehicles to facilitate a successful conduct of Guinea Bissau legislative election slated for November 18, 2018.

However, Atiku, in a statement by his campaign organisation yesterday in Abuja said, “We had cause to counsel the Buhari administration to be more prudent with national resources after the government declared its intention to sell national assets built by previous administrations to fund their business as usual 2019 budget.

“Apparently, rather than give heed to our pro bono patriotic advise, the Buhari administration is persisting in the financial profligacy that has seen them destroy a once thriving economy.

“This is the same government that is so cash strapped that it has so far borrowed 13 trillion in three years putting our economy in even greater peril.

“How prudent is it to go about taking loans from whosoever cares to lend you money and then turn around to give out those same monies even when your own people are suffering the worst forms of poverty they have ever endured?”

The former vice president said that there were over one million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Nigeria, adding, “If you cannot adequately support your own people in dire need, what is the wisdom in crossing borders to support others?”