The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has reacted to the New Year address of President Bola Tinubu to Nigerians.
In a statement on Monday by its national publicity secretary, Debo Ologunagba, the PDP described the New Year speech by President Tinubu as a “harvest of deceit, false claims and empty promises”.
The PDP noted that President Tinubu’s speech was uninspiring and amounts to a waste of valuable time as it did not address any of the critical issues plaguing the nation.
“Nigerians were dismayed as President Tinubu employed rhetoric and failed to address the critical issues of insecurity, decayed infrastructure, comatose manufacturing, and productive sectors; crushing 28% inflation rate, continuing plunge of the Naira, alarming unemployment, excruciating poverty and economic hardship occasioned by the reckless, ill-advised and insensitive policies and programmes of his administration, the PDP stated.
The leading opposition party also described as an unpardonable assault on the sensibility of Nigerians for Tinubu to assert that “Everything I have done in the office, every decision I have taken and every trip I have undertaken outside the shores of our land, since I assumed office on 29 May 2023, has been done in the best interest of our country”.
According to the PDP, “On the contrary, all decisions and actions of the Tinubu Presidency including the approval of an increase in the pump price of fuel from N167 to over N700 per liter, devaluation of the naira with the consequential high costs and hardship; skewing of the 2024 budget in favour of luxury appetite of the Presidency and APC leaders without concrete policies to revive the economy and create jobs; the wasteful foreign trips with political cronies and failure to address the mindless killings across the nation cannot be said to be in the interest of our country.”
The PDP maintained that Tinubu’s statement that his actions and policies are in the interest of the nation further confirmed that this administration is allegedly subjecting Nigerians to hardship as a way to suppress them to surrender to totalitarianism.
The statement partly reads: “President Tinubu ought to have used the opportunity presented by the New Year to apologize to Nigerians and marshal out steps to address our national challenges, including those responsible for the exiting of multinational manufacturing companies and other businesses from our country.
“What Nigerians demand of President Tinubu is to provide a comprehensive account of our nation’s earnings including the proceeds from the removal of subsidy on petroleum products, especially in the face of allegations that the earnings are being diverted to private pockets of APC leaders and their cronies.
“The National Assembly is invited to step up and perform its Constitutional role of oversight to hold the Executive Arm accountable as the custodian of the purse of the nation.”
What do you expect from someone who from onset was not prepared to rescue the country but just wanted to be president because it is his turn this is just the beginning of tough times