APC campaign: Tinubu’s comment on exchange rate was not an attack on Buhari

The All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential campaign council says Bola Tinubu, its presidential candidate, did not attack President Muhammadu Buhari when he spoke about the country’s exchange rate.

Speaking at a rally held at the UJ Esuene Stadium in Calabar, Cross River’s capital, on Tuesday, Tinubu said the Buhari administration met the naira/dollar exchange rate at N200 to a dollar but it has depreciated to about N800/dollar at the parallel market.

In a statement on Wednesday, Bayo Onanuga, the campaign’s media director, said the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) created the current exchange rate crisis experienced by the country.

Onanuga said Buhari has been able to build back the reserve to about $38 billion.

“The reference to exchange rate was not in any way an attack on the Muhammadu Buhari-led All Progressives Congress administration but an attempt to capture how the economic mismanagement of the PDP created a forex crisis in the country since 2015,” he said.

“Anyone who followed the entire sequence and context of what Asiwaju said at the rally in Calabar will know he directed his missiles against PDP and Atiku.

“Let’s not forget, the PDP left the forex reserve at $28 billion by May 2015, when Buhari took over despite unprecedented revenue from crude oil.

“The futile attempt to misrepresent Asiwaju Tinubu by the mischievous PDP media did not detract from his central message.

“Our candidate explicitly said the people should not follow PDP and Atiku because they don’t know the road.

“Asiwaju Tinubu could not have meant that President Buhari does not know the road, having celebrated, numerous times, the achievements of the Buhari administration. Tinubu had also said at campaign fora he would build on the achievements, when elected on 25 February.”