May 29: Address Insecurity, Review Your Policies, PDP Tells Tinubu

The opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has tasked President Bola Tinubu to address insecurity and reverse all ‘economically suffocating policies’, describing his two years in office as a massive disappointment.

The party said the last two years have been nightmarish, adding that Nigerians have gone through hell under the insensitive Tinubu-led All Progressives Congress (APC) government which, it said, holds no good for the citizens.

Besides insecurity, PDP also told the president to check the wholesale corruption, greed, unbridled profligacy, reckless misdirection of resources, arrogance in failure and totalitarian tendencies in his administration, which has shown itself as anti-people and impervious to the suffering of Nigerians.

National publicity secretary of PDP, Hon. Debo Ologungaba, in a statement on Wednesday on the occasion of May 29 anniversary of the Tinubu administration, said: “As a Party, we restate our position that any government that cares for the wellbeing of the people and has an idea of macro-economic policy management would have reckoned that an abrupt increase in petrol price and devaluation of the Naira as executed by the Tinubu administration would cripple the productive sector, inflame high costs, crash millions of businesses, trigger mass job loss, escalate poverty, hunger, hardship, insecurity and hopelessness across the country.

“With the Naira which exchanged for N167 to a US Dollar under the PDP administration now exchanging for over N1,600; petrol which sold for N87 per liter under the PDP now selling for over N1,000 per liter; with nearly 40% inflation rate, over 42% youth unemployment rate, acute food shortage, frightening rise in criminality and social vices, the situation in Nigeria has become so unbearable that many talented citizens are now fleeing the country with others resorting to suicide to escape the agonies inflicted by the APC government.

“More troubling is that from May 2023 when President Tinubu took office, more than 600,000 Nigerians have been killed by terrorists and bandits who are emboldened by the APC administration’s apparent negligence and failure to ensure the safety and security of the nation and her citizens.

“In the last two years of worsened insecurity, comatose infrastructure and economic uncertainties, multinationals are leaving Nigeria in droves to neighboring countries where governments are alive to their responsibilities.”

The party added that it was unfortunately that instead of listening to it and other well-meaning Nigerians, the Tinubu administration resorted to multiple taxes, exploitative charges and reckless foreign borrowing accumulating to N182.91 trillion (with the latest request of a fresh $24.14 billion (N38.24tn) with no corresponding development project or programme that benefits the people.

“More distressing is that while Nigerians suffer, the APC is obsessed with turning our country into a one-Party state, while frittering the nation’s scarce resources for acquisition of jets, pricey yacht, luxury mansions, expensive foreign trips and lavish lifestyle to the chagrin of other citizens.

“The PDP once again counsels President Tinubu to recognize that Nigerians are seriously hurting. Mr. President, in his second-year anniversary address, should therefore avoid the usual APC’s resort to rhetoric and false performance claims that are at variance with the realities of life in Nigeria.

“Mr. President should take advantage of the remaining two years of his administration to redeem his image by addressing the issue of insecurity, review all suffocating policies to bring down the price of petroleum products and shore up the value of the Naira while engaging more skillful hands to manage the nation’s economy.

“Our party urges Nigerians not to give up hope at this trying time but continue to rally on the platform of the PDP in preparation to vote out the APC and its woes in 2027,” the PDP stated.