The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has described President Muhammadu Buhari’s Independence Day broadcast as an insult on the psyche of Nigerians and a mockery of the nation’s integrity as an independent state.
The party said the President’s speech was completely unpresidential, lacking in patriotic stance and replete with manifest inconsistencies, contradictions, paradoxes and false performance claims.
In a statement Tuesday by the spokesman for the PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan, the main opposition party said the President’s broadcast was a “mockery of democracy” and has further confirmed that the country is in wrong hands.
It noted that President Buhari, in his recorded address, failed to forcefully address the key issues of freedom, social justice, constitutional order, separation of powers, rule of law, human rights, credible elections, national cohesion, accountability and transparency in government.
According to the PDP, President Buhari ignored these very fundamentals of an independent state, because his administration had violated them all.
It expressed regrets that the President had no forceful reassurances on the challenge of escalated insecurity under his watch.
“He (President) had no clear-cut and operable blueprint to revamp our economy, which his administration wrecked in a period of four years, resulting in so much hardship and despondency that Nigerians now resort to suicide and slavery abroad as options.
“Our party notes that this address further exposes that the Buhari Presidency is not interested in nation building; that it is completely disconnected from the people and remains insensitive to the plights of Nigerians”, the PDP said.
The party further stated that if anything, the President only succeeded in further demonstrating that his administration is, indeed, in no position to deliver a credible, acceptable and satisfactory independence address.
This PDP lamented that under the Buhari Presidency, the nation has experienced the worst form of division, deprivation, human right abuse, constitutional violations, disregard for rule of law, electoral malpractices, disobedience to court orders, disrespect for separation of powers and curtailing of press freedom.
It added that due to the incompetence and legitimacy challenges confronting the Buhari Presidency, the nation has lost its voice and due regard in the international arena; “as the administration has remained lacking in the required capacity and boldness to forcefully engage other world leaders on critical issues”.
“The dearth in foreign direct investments and the inhuman treatments being meted out on our citizens in countries where we were once held in very high esteem, are some of the injuries our nation is suffering under the Buhari administration”, the statement said.
The party observed that while other leaders motivate their citizens on Independence Day, President Buhari presented uninspiring claims, propaganda and empty promises, describing the development as “depressing”.
The PDP however urged Nigerians not to despair but keep hope alive, as the nation collectively awaits the Supreme Court to deliver justice and retrieve “our stolen” presidential mandate, so that the nation will have a leadership that it truly deserves at this point in the nation’s history.