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
Metuh meanwhile also criticised the statement made by the
President while in the USA, in which he was quoted as
saying that he would administer the country on the basis of
the voting pattern in the last general elections.

He also said that the business community in Nigeria and
across the world noted what he described as the disgraceful
treatment allegedly meted out to some Nigerian bankers
and captains of industries by Buhari during his US visit.

While agreeing that the President has the right to decide
those to be on his entourage on such an important official
visit, he nevertheless said that the way Buhari allegedly
shamed and walked out Nigerian businessmen had sent a
wrong signal to international investors and posed great
threats to inflow of direct foreign investments into the
country.

“These Nigerian businessmen were rejected by their
President only for them to be valued by other Presidents of
African nations who led them into a meeting with President
Barrack Obama in their own countries on account of their
investments in those nations,” he added.

Metuh also said that his party noted the alleged
embarrassment caused by the absence of an economic team
for healthy and informed discussion at the meeting with
officials of the US government.
He said that whereas President Obama came to the meeting
with a formidable team of experts and key federal officials,
President Buhari had in his entourage some APC governors,
who, he said, owe salaries and billions of naira in debts.

This action, he said, robbed the nation the benefits and
gains of the discussions.

Metuh said that since the President had insisted on running
his government as a sole administrator, making important
decisions on national affairs without recourse to relevant
statutory arms and organs of government, the PDP was
being compelled to demand that the administration publish
its expenses since assumption of office in May, in keeping
with its much harped stance on transparency.

“We make this demand because since the APC took office,
the nation’s financial system in the absence of statutory
functionaries has been enmeshed in confusion, controversy
and fertile atmosphere for financial sleazes,” he added.

Metuh also alleged that his party was in possession of
information that the Presidency acting alone, has gone into
discussions with the World Bank for a loan of $2.1 bn for
purposes unknown to Nigerians.
He asked, “What is the loan for? What are the terms and
who are those working the papers? Who are the people to
decide on how the money will be spent? Is it true that the $
2.1bn loan is meant to pay back huge contributions for the
APC Presidential campaign expenses?
“If truly this government is transparent, it should come out
clear on this loan as well as publicise details of its
expenditure in the last two months.”
The opposition party’s spokesperson also condemned what
he called the recent humiliation of Patience Jonathan at the
Port Harcourt airport, where he said the ex-President’s wife
was refused access to the protocol lounge based on “an
order from Abuja”.

He said this was not the case when Jonathan was in power,
during which he said all former Presidents and their
spouses had unhindered access to the protocol lounge.
Metuh refused to take questions after the briefing.

Copyright PUNCH.

Wailers

Ok

Buhari himself Knows.