BY VICTOR BUORO, ABUJA – The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has mocked President Muhammadu Buhari, for delivering an “empty and directionless” New Year message to Nigerians.
Describing the President’s 2021 New Year speech as confirming its claims that Nigeria is leaderless, the opposition party again insisted that the country is fast heading towards being a failed state
The PDP accused President Buhari of offering lame excuses and making empty promises as usual instead of purposefully addressing the challenges facing the country.
According to the country’s main opposition party, the President’s speech strong indicates the need for compatriots to come together and salvage Nigeria from its current economic predicament.
“As a president, President Muhammadu Buhari has not demonstrated the capacity to play his own part, as he claimed, having failed to find a solution for the security and economic challenges that pervade our nation under his incompetent and lethargic watch.”
In a statement released on Friday January 1, 2021, the PDP said; “The myriads of lame excuses in Mr President’s address again underlines our national misfortune of weak leadership that is unable to resolutely confront and vanquish bandits, terrorists, kidnappers and vandals who are now holding our nation hostage, ravaging our communities, kidnapping and beheading our compatriots without restraint.”
It further said Nigerians had hoped that the President, in the New Year, would demonstrate decisive will to tackle security challenges by reviewing his parade and heeding the demands to rejig the nation’s security architecture.
The party said; “The situation at hand requires more than an armchair commander in chief who only dwells on excuses for manifest failures. President Buhari’s New Year address only points to the fact that our nation is in dire need of a leadership that is willing, able and ready to engage from the fronts.
“On the economy, Mr President failed to articulate a definite economic recovery blueprint. He had no clear strategies to shore up the value of our naira, repay and end our foreign borrowings, revamp our external reserves, give hope to foreign investors, move promises of job creation from the perpetual drawing board, and guarantee food security, health care among others.
“Moreover, the failure by Mr President to make a direct commitment on budgetary provisions exposes a lack of will and direction and shows that the next two years under the Buhari-led All Progressives Congress (APC) administration would leave our nation with forlorn hope.”
Also tackling the government on the #EndSARS crisis, the PDP carpeted him for failing to address the prosecution of those protesters who are rightly demanding an end to police brutality and bad governance in the country.
The statement said; “In the same vein, our party finds it lamentable that President Buhari, in his reference to the demonstration by our youths, did not make any decisive pronouncement to end the on-going persecution of #EndSARS protesters or order a presidential inquest into the reported Lekki killing.”
