PDP flays Buhari for ‘snubbing’ handover programme

The Peoples Democratic Party has knocked the President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari, for allegedly snubbing the May 29, 2015 handover programme lined up by the Federal Government.

Olisah Metuh

The party said such behaviour was a measure of lack of democratic discipline.

The PDP National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh, in a statement on Sunday said the President-elect owed Nigerians explanations on why he snubbed the prayer sessions scheduled for Friday and Sunday for Muslims and Christians respectively.

It also criticised Buhari  for “the embarrassing protocol gaffe and low-down treatment” that characterised his visit to British Prime Minister David Cameron last Saturday.

The PDP said it was disgraceful that due to poor coordination and crass ineptitude in the handling of issues, Buhari was left almost stranded while waiting to be received by the British leader.

It wondered if such was a foretaste of the “muddling to be experienced under the All Progressives Congress administration.”

The party said, “Nigerians, as citizens of a sovereign nation, were thoroughly embarrassed when they saw their President-elect cheapened and kept waiting at the door of 10, Downing Street, to see the British Prime Minister due to shoddy arrangements by his handlers.

“Indeed, they are becoming increasingly worried about the frightening unpreparedness of the APC for governance and the huge embarrassments they have been attracting to our nation.

“We know that the APC has been lying over issues.  We also know that the APC and the President-elect have been flip-flopping and reneging on their campaign promises, but to embarrass the nation by embarking on such a sensitive visit without adequate preparations is shameful and completely unacceptable.”

The PDP said the APC had continued to give signals that it lacked the capacity to face the challenges of governance.

“Such has been evident in the uneasiness of the President-elect, who in apparent loss of confidence in himself, has started reneging on his promises of quick fixes while confessing in a meeting with APC governors-elect on May 5, 2015, that he has ‘started nervously to explain to people that Rome was not built in a day’,” it stated.

The PDP added that “instead of settling down for governance and working out on how to fulfill its promises of making the Naira the same in value with the dollar, paying N5,000,000 monthly to 25 million poor Nigerians, providing electricity on 24/7 basis, providing free meals for school children and allowances for discharged but unemployed youth corps members among others, the APC is busy inventing excuses for failure and blaming everyone else but themselves.”

It therefore asked the APC to get ready to apply its manifesto or be bold to apologise to Nigerians for presenting “false messianic posture and making false promises to them.”

PDP flays Buhari for ‘snubbing’ handover programme