- Party: Nigeria in Comatose
By Kolawole Ojebisi
The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, on Wednesday, said Nigeria under the watch of President Bola Tinubu in the last two years has become comatose
The opposition party maintained that the Tinubu administration has foisted untold hardship on Nigerians, stressing that it is massive disappointment that the government has delivered little despite promising much at its inauguration.
The former ruling party released on Wednesday, in Abuja, by its National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba.
“As a Party, we restate our position that any government that cares for the wellbeing of the people and has an idea of macro-economic policy management would have reckoned that an abrupt increase in petrol price and devaluation of the Naira as executed by the Tinubu administration would cripple the productive sector, inflame high costs, crash millions of businesses, trigger mass job loss, escalate poverty, hunger, hardship, insecurity and hopelessness across the country.
“With the Naira which exchanged for N167 to a US Dollar under the PDP administration now exchanging for over N1,600; petrol which sold for N87 per liter under the PDP now selling for over N1,000 per liter; with nearly 40% inflation rate, over 42% youth unemployment rate, acute food shortage, frightening rise in criminality and social vices, the situation in Nigeria has become so unbearable that many talented citizens are now fleeing the country with others resorting to suicide to escape the agonies inflicted by the APC government.
“More troubling is that from May 2023 when President Tinubu took office, more than 600,000 Nigerians have been killed by terrorists and bandits who are emboldened by the APC administration’s apparent negligence and failure to ensure the safety and security of the nation and her citizens,” the statement said.
PDP further stated that “in the last two years of worsened insecurity, comatose infrastructure and economic uncertainties, multinationals are leaving Nigeria in droves to neighboring countries where governments are alive to their responsibilities”
According to the opposition party, instead of listening to the PDP and other well-meaning Nigerians, the Tinubu administration resorted to multiple taxes, exploitative charges and reckless foreign borrowing accumulating to N182.91 trillion (with the latest request of a fresh $24.14 billion (N38.24tn) with no corresponding development project or programme that benefits the people.
PDP maintained that while Nigerians suffer, the APC is obsessed with turning Nigeria into a one-party state and frittering the nation’s scarce resources for acquisition of jets, pricey yacht, luxury mansions, expensive foreign trips and lavish lifestyle to the chagrin of other citizens.
The PDP urged Tinubu to recognize that “Nigerians are seriously hurting, adding that he should avoid the usual APC’s resort to rhetoric and false performance claims that are at variance with the realities of life in Nigeria.”
The party tasked Tinubu to take advantage of the remaining two years of his administration to redeem his image by addressing the issue of insecurity, review all suffocating policies to bring down the price of petroleum products and shore up the value of the naira while engaging more skillful hands to manage the nation’s economy.
