TheCable

In response to a statement of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) accusing him of chasing away investors with his utterances, President Muhammadu Buhari has accused the party of not showing “remorsefulness” for the harm it did to Nigeria.

Olisa Metuh, PDP spokesman, had said the president was “de-marketing” Nigeria with “negative labelling of Nigerians and unhealthy portrayal of the nation’s economy”.

But the presidency, in a riposte on Sunday, described the opposition’s statement as an attempt to distract Buhari from doing his job as president.

“We restate for the umpteenth time to Mr Metuh and his ilk that their attempts to distract President Buhari from the job he has been elected to do will fail,” Femi Adesina, presidential spokesman, said in a statement.

“President Buhari will remain true to the virtues of honesty, integrity, sincerity, incorruptibility and plain-speaking, which endeared him to Nigerians and made them prefer his leadership that of a lying and deceptive PDP administration.

“The president will not, in the guise of “marketing” the country, refrain from telling Nigerians and the world, the emerging truths about the abject state in which years of plundering by a PDP leadership has left the Nigerian treasury and economy.

“President Buhari will not in the name of ‘marketing’ or ‘attracting’ investors, follow in the footsteps of the ousted PDP administration and its discredited officials who shamelessly lied to Nigerians and the world about the buoyancy and vibrancy of an economy they had bled dry for personal gain, when it was very obvious to the discerning, that the Nigerian economy was headed for serious trouble.

“It is most unfortunate that instead of showing some remorsefulness for the harm done to the nation by his party, and giving genuine support for President Buhari’s efforts to salvage and revamp the national economy, Mr Metuh persists in a vain attempt to remain relevant on the national stage by unjustly denigrating the President who continues to strive with all his might to alleviate and reverse the harm done to the nation by PDP misrule and corruption.

“Mr Metuh’s antics are futile. President Buhari cannot be distracted by a broken record. If the PDP spokesman ever has serious matters to bring to our attention, we will be prepared to listen.”