TheCable

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has described the  New Year address of President Muhammadu Buhari as “empty and directionless”.

In a statement, Kola Ologbondiyan, spokesman of the opposition party, said Buhari’s message confirms that Nigeria has become “leaderless” and that it underscores the urgent need for “compatriots to come together and salvage the nation”.

Ologbondiyan said instead of addressing pressing issues and preferring solutions, all Buhari could offer “a troubled and frustrated nation was a regurgitated script full of lame excuses and empty promises that address nothing”.

“As a President, President Buhari has not demonstrated the capacity to play his own part, as he claimed, having failed to find a solution for the security and economic challenges that pervade our nation under his incompetent and lethargic watch,” PDP said.

“The myriads of lame excuses in Mr. President’s address again underlines our national misfortune of weak leadership that is unable to resolutely confront and vanquish bandits, terrorists, kidnappers and vandals who are now holding our nation hostage, ravaging our communities, kidnapping and beheading our compatriots without restrain.

“The least Nigerians expected from Mr. President, in the New Year, was a decisive will to tackle our security challenges by reviewing his parade and heeding the demands by Nigerians to rejig our nation s security.

“The situation at hand requires more than an armchair commander in chief who only dwells on excuses for manifest failures. President Muhammadu Buhari’s New Year address only points to the fact that our nation is in dire need of leadership that is willing, able and ready to engage from the fronts.”

On economy, the PDP said Buhari failed to articulate a definite economic recovery blueprint.

“Mr. President had the opportunity to redeem his administration by taking steps that will address high costs of food, education and housing deficit; address the high price of fuel, multiple taxes and tariffs that bear pressure on businesses and families as well as how to enhance national productivity and grow our Gross Domestic Produce (GDP),” he said.

“In the same vein, our party finds it lamentable that President Buhari, in his reference to the demonstration by our youths, did not make any decisive pronouncement to end the on-going persecution of EndSARS protesters or order a Presidential inquest into the reported Lekki killing.”

The party, however, urged Nigerians not to despair but use the new year to reinforce their bond of unity and continue to work together to rescue “our nation from misrule”.