PDP wants Buhari to tackle crisis with formidable team

• You lack morality to criticise President, APC counters

Disturbed by the nation’s prostrate economy, the caretaker chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi, has charged the President Muhammadu administration to raise an economic team irrespective of party affiliations to proffer sustainable solutions to the current crisis in the economy.

Makarfi, who backed the position of Anthony Cardinal Olubunmi Okojie in his letter to the President, said: “This is the time Nigerians should come together, irrespective of party affiliations to pull our country from the present economic woes.”

The PDP chair, while speaking yesterday in Kaduna, noted that: “We are all Nigerians. We must know that things are tough today. I read a letter written by Cardinal Olubunmi Okojie to the President in the newspapers expressing the same concern.

“Before that, there were some elements of appeal in his letter, especially where he called for all hands to be on deck to salvage the nation. This is not an issue for one political party alone. Long before that letter, and as a matter of fact, long before the President was sworn into office and to be candid, my personal belief was that the country was in a serious problem and that we were heading into more serious problems.

“But, all hands needed to be on deck. There is a time to play politics and also a time not to play politics with certain issues. The situation in the country today really requires that all hands must be on deck to salvage our country from the present economic condition. As Cardinal Okojie said in that letter, if the economy is bad, it is the political class that is to be blamed.

“Let us own up to the wrong, collectively repent and come together for the sake of the ordinary man and woman to save our nation from economic doom.”Reacting, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) said the opposition party lacked the moral rectitude to pontificate on the issue.

In a statement by its National Secretary, Mai Mala Buni, the party assured the citizenry that the administration remains committed to resuscitating the economy as quickly as possible.

It described the comments by the PDP as a calculated plot to deflect attention from the “voodoo economics and reckless fiscal policies the country was subjected to during its 16-year rule.”

Mala added: “For the umpteenth time, the PDP lacks the credibility to comment or condemn the government on the economy after the mess it left behind. Instead, the PDP must apologise to Nigerians.”