Buhari embarrassed Nigeria in America, PDP says

Precisely 59 days after President Muhammadu Buhari assumed power, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party on Sunday listed many ‘sins’ the Federal Government under the President had committed and said Buhari’s government lacked direction.

Among the sins of the Buhari’s government, the PDP said, included alleged failure by the President to achieve anything meaningful during his just-concluded US trip and alleged maltreatment of Patience, wife of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan.

At a media briefing in Abuja on Sunday, the PDP’s National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh, said events after Buhari’s visit to the US indicated that neither the President nor his party, the All Progressives Congress, had learnt anything from the trip.

Metuh said, “Now that the visit has come and gone, our fear is that nothing whatsoever has been learnt or gained.

“What we continue to receive as a nation have been embarrassing disagreements, accusations and counter-accusations, blames and denials on very important issues due to lack of tact and skill in the management of state matters by the APC-led administration.

“It is disheartening that rather than secure any sort of tangible gain for the fight against terrorism, which has lost steam under the APC watch, with insurgents, who were pushed to the verge of surrender by the Goodluck Jonathan administration, now surging back and spreading into the country, we get nothing but exchanges and disagreements between the Presidency and their American hosts.

“This is not only embarrassing but also a worrisome indication of crass ineptitude in the handling of international affairs on the part of the present administration.”

He urged the government to settle down and face the business of governance and the fight against insurgency with every sense of seriousness, especially given Buhari’s promise in his April 2, 2015 CNN interview to end the scourge two months after his inauguration.

Reacting, the All Progressives Congress, said that the PDP would be unable to provide any worthwhile opposition to the Federal Government if its spokesman continued to issue empty statements.

‘’Today’s statement is the most tortuous yet by the PDP and, honestly, sounds more like a compendium of beer parlour gossips and side talks than a serious criticism of a sitting government,’’ the APC said in a statement issued in Lagos on Sunday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.

‘‘To be in opposition does not mean you have to constitute yourself to a nuisance by rushing to the press with all sorts of hot air statements. It is the quality, rather than the frequency, of your interventions that makes you relevant as an opposition in a democracy,’’ the party said

– Punch