Abuja (Sundiata Post) – The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has responded to the attack launched at it by the Presidency on Thursday, where it suggested that the main opposition party was the greatest obstacle to Nigeria’s development, with the PDP saying now that President Muhammadu Buhari was ill-equipped for governance.
In a statement issued in Abuja on Friday by Kola Ologbondiyan, its National Publicity Secretary, the PDP noted that the vituperation by the presidency “in desperate defence of the fizzling All Progressives Congress (APC)” was a further confirmation that the APC has become comatose.
It said the presidency response to an earlier statement by the PDP further showed that President Buhari has abandoned governance “to engage in threnody for his dysfunctional APC.”
The PDP added: “Our party also notes that a reading of the reaction from the Presidency further strengthens the fact that the Buhari’s administration has become uncoordinated and ill-equipped for governance.
“The statement also portrays a Presidency lacking in confidence that its party, the APC, can still perform its roles.
“The Buhari Presidency ought to have known that it is too late in the day for concealments or gagging of Nigerians as its failures, incompetence and lack of confidence in itself and the APC are manifest at all turns.
“Moreover, the Presidency should know that the PDP, as a party that resonates with Nigerians and on which our democracy and national cohesion is anchored, has a solemn duty to hold President Buhari and his APC accountable for their misrule which has brought untold poverty, hunger, violence, bloodletting and division in the land.
“The PDP has the responsibility to hold President Buhari and the APC accountable for the promises they made to Nigerians in 2015, which remain unfulfilled as they were only used by the APC as carrots to grab power and sit in oppression over our people.
“Now that the Presidency has abandoned governance to speak for the dying APC, we charge it to place President Buhari on the seat to, in addition to the failures of his administration, also take responsibility for the woes of the APC.
“In doing this, the PDP charges Mr. President to explain how he and his party wrecked our economy from one of the fastest growing in the world to a shameful world poverty capital in a space of four years and brought so much hopelessness that compatriots now resort to suicide, infanticide, human trafficking and slavery mission abroad for survival. The answer is incompetence and dishonesty!
“The Buhari Presidency and APC should explain why they have been pursuing polices that threaten the unity, stability and national cohesion of our dear nation; policies and body language that promote division, violence, abuse of human rights, violation of rule of law, attack on tenets and institutions of democracy. The answer is intolerance, power drunkenness and narrow-mindedness!
“The Buhari Presidency and the APC should explain why they relish in inflicting hardship, stimulating high costs and unemployment in the land through exclusionism, harsh taxes and increased tariffs, while failing to recover the over N15 trillion stolen by APC leaders, including the N9 trillion exposed by the leaked NNPC memo, funds which are meant for the welfare of Nigerians. The answer is insensitivity, selfishness and ingrained corruption in the APC and the Buhari administration
“The fact remains that the atrocities of the APC stare it in the face and Nigerians, including President Buhari, know that the APC is not in the card for 2023.”
Recall that a statement by presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, on Thursday, had told the PDP that it has no business discussing “the love lust” between President Muhammadu Buhari and his governing APC.
While telling the PDP to focus on its problems, the presidency described the party as the obstacle to the push for change in the country.
The presidency had stated: “As the People’s Democratic Party, the country’s main opposition party grapples with deeply troubling questions about its terminal decline and future in national politics, Nigerians must be surprised reading a statement issued by them, assuming the role of Spokesmen for “President Muhammadu Buhari.
What business do they have talking about alleged love lost between President Buhari and the APC? What do they know? Who sent them?
“Today, the PDP represents the single biggest obstacle to good governance and change that the country needs and the people are yearning for.
“Both self-respect and sound political judgement demand that the Party takes an introspective look at itself after two successive defeats in national elections, asking what went wrong and how to fix its battered image.
“They need to go back to the people, in towns and villages, to know what the people want and what the country needs. Instead of doing that, they are taking roles for themselves that are not mandated by law, morality or political gamesmanship.
“What business do they have issuing a statement on the love or the lack of it between the President and his party? This is not why they lost elections. The party needs a reboot that aligns with current national mood and aspirations, to focus on their grim future after two successive defeats. It is the issue they need to focus on if they are to be taken as a serious opposition party again.
“A tough task awaits anyone leading a party with nothing to offer to contemporary Nigerians but corruption, misgovernance and division.
“As for the APC, the geographical expansion of the party is nothing short of a testimony to the rosy future that lies ahead. The party has come to stay, and the President and the country will ensure that this is achieved.”
