Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar yesterday took President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to the cleaner for condemning HSBC, the world’s largest bank, simply because it gave a verdict that Buhari’s re-election would spell doom for Nigeria’s economy.
Atiku noted that Buhari’s government seems not to be aware that some of the record ¦ 12 trillion worth of debt, which the Buhari administration has saddled Nigeria with is actually funded from HSBC, which is the world’s largest bank.
Describing the development as comical and pathetic that the Buhari government’s called HSBC corrupt, Atiku, in a statement by its Campaign Organisation said, “when they were taking their money, the ever begging Buhari administration did not know that HSBC was corrupt. It was after the HSBC told the truth about the Buhari government that they knew that the HSBC is keeping looted funds.
“In their statement, the Presidency called HSBC ‘A bank that soiled its hand with millions of US dollars yet-to-be-recovered Abacha loot.’ They forgot that their principal, Muhammadu Buhari said: ‘Abacha did not steal.’ So if Abacha did not steal, how could HSBC keep recovered Abacha loot? When you tell so many lies, you begin to contradict yourself.
“The fact remains that Nigeria under Buhari has been adjudged as the world headquarters for extreme poverty by the World Economic Forum and the World Poverty Clock as well as the British Prime Minister, Theresa May. Are these people also corrupt?
“Only last month, the National Bureau of Statistics revealed that our second quarter GDP growth rate was lower than our first quarter GDP growth. Another quarter of negative growth and Nigeria will enter a second recession under the Buhari administration.
“The same NBS published in December 2017 that 7.9 million Nigerians lost their jobs in 21 months under Buhari’s watch.
“These are the things that the government should be focused on and not to haul infantile insults at the world’s largest bank.”