Nigeria at 59: President Buhari under fire over nationwide broadcast

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has blasted President Muhammadu Buhari, describing his Independence Day broadcast as an insult on the psyche of Nigerians.
The party said the broadcast was a mockery of the nation’s integrity as an independent state.

According to the PDP, Buhari’s speech was completely unpresidential, lacking in patriotic stance and replete with manifest inconsistencies, contradictions, paradoxes and false performance claims.
This was contained in a statement Tuesday signed by the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan.
It said “President Buhari, in his recorded address, failed to forcefully address the key issues of freedom, social justice, constitutional order, separation of powers, rule of law, human rights, credible elections, national cohesion, accountability and transparency in government.”

The party noted that “President Buhari ignored these very fundamentals of an independent state, because his administration had violated them all.”
It expressed regrets that “the President had no forceful reassurances on the challenge of escalated insecurity under his watch.
“He (President) had no clear-cut and operable blueprint to revamp our economy, which his administration wrecked in a period of four years, resulting in so much hardship and despondency that Nigerians now resort to suicide and slavery abroad as options.

“Our party notes that this address further exposes that the Buhari Presidency is not interested in nation building; that it is completely disconnected from the people and remains insensitive to the plight of Nigerians.
“If anything, the President only succeeded in further demonstrating that his administration is, indeed, in no position to deliver a credible, acceptable and satisfactory independence address.”
This PDP lamented that “under the Buhari Presidency, the nation has experienced the worst form of division, deprivation, human rights abuse, constitutional violations, disregard for the rule of law, electoral malpractices, disobedience to court orders, disrespect for separation of powers and curtailing of press freedom.
It added that “due to the incompetence and legitimacy challenges confronting the Buhari Presidency, the nation has lost its voice and due regard in the international arena; as the administration has remained lacking in the required capacity and boldness to forcefully engage other world leaders on critical issues
“The dearth in foreign direct investments and the inhuman treatments being meted out on our citizens in countries where we were once held in very high esteem, are some of the injuries our nation is suffering under the Buhari administration.
“While other leaders motivate their citizens on Independence Day, President Buhari presented uninspiring claims, propaganda and empty promises, describing the development as “depressing
The main opposition party, however, urged Nigerians not to “despair but keep hope alive, as the nation collectively awaits the Supreme Court to deliver justice and retrieve our stolen presidential mandate, so that the nation will have a leadership that it truly deserves at this point in the nation’s history.”