August 30, 2018
Press Statement
May, Merkel Visits: Buhari Can’t Productively Engage, Says PDP
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) laments President Muhammadu Buhari’s
inability to productively engage British Prime Minister, Theresa May,
thereby directly bungling our nation’s opportunity to draw maximum
economic dividends from her visit before she left the shores of our
country.
The party expresses deep concerns that President Buhari could not even
assemble a competent economic team to engage the British leader and has
also not considered it expedient to muster a team for strategic
engagement with German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, who is billed to
commence a state visit to our nation.
It is indeed unfortunate and completely unpatriotic that instead of
thinking of ways to draw economic dividends from the important state
visits, President Buhari is rather more interested in using them to
secure international endorsements for his selfish re-election bid.
We all saw a British Prime Minister who was favourably disposed to a
healthy and productive engagement on critical areas of our economy and
how President Buhari and his officials, out of sheer incompetence,
failed to seize the opportunity for the benefit of our nation.
Instead, the Buhari Presidency was more interested in photo-ops and
diplomatic niceties, perhaps to score cheap political points, indicative
of how our Presidency has diminished in the last three years.
The robust and very fruitful engagement the British leader later had
with Kenyan President, Uhuru Kenyatta, shows how low, the standard of
national leadership has fallen in our country under the Buhari
Presidency.
The PDP therefore urges the Buhari Presidency to stop being a cog in the
wheel of progress for the nation.
President Buhari should immediately end this government lethargy and
seek help in setting up a team comprising of very competent and
knowledgeable hands to interface with the German Chancellor and her team
so that Nigeria will benefit from her visit.
Finally, we caution President Buhari not to seek to use the visit of the
German leader for another lame attempt at international endorsement,
which has continued to elude him, while attracting embarrassing
backlashes to the nation.
Moreover, such is no longer useful for him, as Nigerians and the
international community have already reached a consensus that our dear
nation needs a more competent and resourceful President, who has respect
for rule of law and the overall interest of the people.
Signed:
Kola Ologbondiyan
National Publicity Secretary
