Senate President Ahmad Lawan on Tuesday hit the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) hard for its 16 years of misrule.
He said the party’s ineptitude allowed Boko Haram insurgency to fester.
Lawan, according to a statement by his Special Adviser (Media), Ola Awoniyi, in Abuja, spoke at the Presidential Campaign Rally of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Damaturu, Yobe State.
Lawan said: “PDP mismanaged and mal-administer Nigeria for 16 years.
“When Boko Haram started in the Northeast, in Borno State, the then leadership of PDP said it was not true.
“There was nothing like Boko Haram and Boko Haram blossomed. Boko Haram flourished and Boko Haram gained ground and took root.”
Addressing President Buhari, Lawan added: “Your Excellency, Boko Haram caused maximum, devastating impacts in our lives here.
“Your Excellency, Borno, Yobe and Adamawa particularly, we were under a state of emergency for 18 months.
“For 18 months, the Federal Government then stopped our statutory allocations to our local governments.
“We suffered, our people suffered. No developmental projects going on at all until you came in 2015. That was the salvation moment.
“We are indeed very grateful to Almighty God that the APC, that platform and the people of Nigeria needed a change.
“They needed a leadership that will care. They needed a leadership that will not segregate and that leadership is your leadership.
“During that time, even the ecological fund or stabilisation account was based on party. They will give to only PDP states.
“They will not give other states that were in opposition. You came, and you changed all that.
“Your Excellency, today, we have 41 million registered Nigerians as APC members. All we need to do is mobilise our base.
“Your Excellency, Yobe State is an APC base. In fact at the risk of sounding controversial, I there say that no state in Nigeria is more APC than Yobe State. We are going to deliver every contestable seat to APC in Yobe State.
“Your Excellency, you have been in the seat of leadership in this country. For seven and half years, you have done wonderfully well.
‘They lied. And lied and lied. They want us to believe that they did something. In fact, PDP should be ashamed of itself.
“They destroyed this country. They should have no chance to go around this country, seeking the support of Nigerians.
“You have provided security. As far as we are concerned, the new insecurity that we are seeing, we have acknowledged that it is true and that is the beginning of the solution.
“We are all working hard to ensure that before you leave, before Asiwaju takes the oath of office on the 29th of May, 2023, the security situation would have further improved.”