The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has criticised the 63rd Independence Day Address by President Bola Tinubu, stating that it is empty, devoid of ideas, and merely aspirational in the wrong direction.
This criticism is outlined in a statement issued on Sunday by its national spokesman, Debo Ologunagba.
In their reaction to the address, the main opposition party observed that this is especially evident “in the face of the harrowing and life-discounting experiences being encountered by Nigerians under the All Progressives Congress (APC) administrations.”
The PDP noted that President Tinubu’s admission in his speech that his administration is responsible for the current excruciating hardship in the country validates the PDP’s position that the Tinubu-led government lacks the competence, capacity, required skills, and humaneness to effectively run the affairs of the nation.
The PDP insisted that Nigerians should not have to endure agonising hardship as excused by President Tinubu if the nation is run by a government that has the required vision and skills to harness and manage our economic potential, national comparative advantage, and expanded value chain that abound in our vast but dormant productive sector.
The statement added: “The expectation of Nigerians on a day like this was for a presidential speech that will provide concrete solutions to critical challenges facing the nation, including security, as well as the crisis in the electricity and petroleum sectors.
“Indeed, any serious government with the requisite capacity and vision will set a Marshall Plan for every critical sector that has the capacity to galvanise and stimulate the economy through job creation.
“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 an unprecedented crippling effect on the productive sector and agonising 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 in massive job losses 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 heartbreaking 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 asserted that there is nothing to cheer over such spiteful tokenism, amidst unbearable costs.
It said President Tinubu announced “a miserable” N25,000 per month for six months for average low-grade workers while still being aspirational about his promise of compressed natural gas (CNG) buses.
“It is also certain, from antecedents, that the promised cash transfer programmes to an additional 15 million vulnerable households would be another conduit pipe to divert public funds to corrupt APC leaders,” the party added.
The PDP urged Nigerians to note that President Tinubu’s speech has left no one in doubt that the APC administration has no plans, capacity, or competence to handle the crucial and urgent task of governance, which is clearly beyond its managerial faculty.
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