PDP asks Buhari to resign over rising insecurity, corruption

• Call, Silly, Says APC
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) rose from a press conference yesterday asking President Muhammadu Buhari to resign for failure to combat increasing cases of insecurity and corruption across the country.

The party said that what the country is witnessing today is a total collapse whereby the nation is on ventilator gasping for air. It stressed that under such circumstances, the president should do the honorable thing required of an elder statesman in situations like this, by throwing in the towel.

National Chairman of the party, Prince Uche Secondus, presided over the media briefing, tagged, “Nigeria in a free fall, as corruption, insecurity engulfs the Nation,” at the party’s national secretariat in Abuja.

But the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) has described the call by the opposition party as “a silly idea.”

In a statement by its Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Yekini Nabena, APC said the call by the PDP is not unconnected with the impending mass defections set to hit the party.

Lamenting the absence of attention to critical issues, the PDP said it’s becoming clear to all that “the ears we are targeting are deaf as nothing on ground shows that there is a government in this country.

“No effort is being made from any angle to halt the on-going free fall being witnessed on all fronts in the country. Nigerians have become helpless and have come to accept and live like citizens of a nation without leader and with no direction.”

On the spate of insecurity, the PDP noted: “Having exhausted their propaganda of winning the war on terrorism only in their press releases, both the military and political leaders are now helpless and confused.”

According to the party, “what the Nigerian Senate did on Tuesday when it asked the service chiefs to resign was to show that there is no executive arm of government in place.”

It explained that few months back having advised the executive to sack the service chiefs for having outlived their relevance and to re-engineer the military for the emerging challenges, and having watched the security situation in the country grow from worse to worst, the legislators have limited option but to do what they did to show the people that they are sensitive to their plights.

On corruption, the PDP noted that, “since transparency International said few years ago that the worst corruption was going-on in Nigeria under this regime, the situation has continued to worsen…”

It lamented further that, “the nation’s economy is walking to depression and being fast tracked by the widening scope of corruption involving operatives in the high places.”

The PDP further argued that, “the free-for-all corruption going on leaves us with the impression that the country is dying and there has been a scramble for what one can get out of it before the final demise.

“As we speak, the big corruption cover-up is on-going in critical sectors, the Nigeria Ports Authority, NPA, the Maritime Sector, the Customs, the Federal inland Revenue Service, FIRS, Nigeria Social Insurance a Trust Fund, NSITF, North East Development Commission, NNPC crude oil sale to China and the like.”

It observed that nothing brings out the exact character of President Buhari’s administration to corruption than the on-going free-for-all fraud at the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, where the so-called forensic auditors sent in by the President to unearth fraud are themselves becoming visible accomplices to the crime.

For APC, however, nobody expects the PDP to provide ideas on good governance going by their inglorious past and antecedents. “We only reiterate that the PDP stays quiet while the President Muhammadu Buhari administration clear the rot they foisted on the country,” the party added.

The ruling party said it was “particularly gladdened by the return of the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Yakubu Dogara to the APC. 

“As we work collectively to achieve the Nigeria of our dreams, we will no doubt encounter challenges. But one thing is sure. Under the focused and sincere leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari, we are already delivering on key electoral promises of securing the nation, fighting corruption and improving the economy and livelihoods.”