The 63rd Independence Day Address by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, according to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), is empty, devoid of ideas, and merely aspirational, especially in light of the traumatic and life-changing experiences Nigerians are currently going through under the All Progressives Congress (APC) administrations.
The party claimed that President Tinubu acknowledged in his speech that his administration is to blame for the country’s current extreme hardship, and that this affirms its claim that he lacks the ability, capacity, necessary skills, and humanity to manage the country’s affairs effectively.
The PDP argued that if Nigeria is governed by a government with the necessary vision and capabilities to harness and manage our economic potentials, national comparative advantage, and expanded value chain that abound in the vast but untapped productive sector, Nigerians do not need to endure excruciating hardship as being excused by President Tinubu.
In a statement in response to Tinubu’s Independence Day speech, the national publicity secretary of the PDP, Hon. Debo Ologunagba, said Nigerians anticipated a presidential speech that would offer specific solutions to the pressing issues facing the country in the security, electricity, and petroleum sectors.
Every important sector that has the potential to energize and stimulate the economy through job creation, according to Ologunagba, will receive a Marshall Plan from any serious government that has the necessary capacity and vision.
“Our Party holds that the manifest non-preparedness and hasty implementation of ill-planned policies by the current APC administration triggered a catastrophic economic failure with unprecedented crippling effect on the productive sector and agonizing hardship on Nigerians.
“The ill-planned policies led to the closure and mass exodus of many multinational companies from our country, disabled millions of Small and Medium Enterprises and resulted to massive loss of jobs across the country.
“It is troubling that President Tinubu’s speech also had no clear-cut measures to revamp the critical sectors of manufacturing, agriculture, food production, transportation, healthcare, education and other pivotal sectors of life in the country.
“The President’s speech articulated no solutions to the fall of the Naira from N187 to the US Dollar under the PDP to over N1000 under his watch; no answers to the alarming over 40% unemployment rate and the fact that Nigerians are now daily fleeing the country in droves.
“Furthermore, it is heartrending that the President’s speech had no words on the mindless killings, maiming, abductions and mass burial of citizens in various parts of the country under his watch. He had no reassuring words on the abduction of students in Zamfara State as well as other victims of such dastardly acts across the country.
“On the much-touted welfare package, the PDP asserts that there is nothing to cheer over such spiteful tokenism where, amidst unbearable costs, President Tinubu announced a miserable N25,000 per month for six months for average low-grade workers, while still being aspirational on his promise of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) buses.
“It is also certain, from antecedents, that the promised cash transfer programs to an additional 15 million vulnerable households, would be another conduit pipe to divert public fund to corrupt APC leaders.
“Our Party invites Nigerians to note that President Tinubu’s speech has left no one in doubt that the APC administration has no plans, capacity and competence to handle the crucial and urgent task of governance; which is clearly beyond its managerial faculty,” the PDP said.
