The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has upbraided the Buhari Presidency
for seeking to transfer the brunt of its failures to articulate and
coordinate an effective national response on COVID-19 pandemic on state
governors, describing such as unpardonable manifestation of leadership
failure.
The party said Buhari Presidency’s decision to run to state governors
for solution after it had badly muddled up the process, leading to
confusion across the country and consequential spike in infection and
fatality rates, is rather coming very late in the day.
Nigerians can recall how our party and other well-meaning Nigerians
repeatedly counseled the Buhari Presidency to involve state governors,
the private sector and critical stakeholders for an effective
multisectoral and multilayered approach, to no avail.
The Buhari Presidency rebuffed wise counsels and settled for a parochial
response marred by corruption, nepotism, incompetence and narrow-minded
politics, only to now turn to seek to transfer the brunt of its colossal
failure to state governors.
The PDP described the announcement by the National Coordinator of the
failed Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, Dr. Sani Aliyu, that
state governments should now start taking ownership of the response, as
an acceptance of failure by President Buhari, who failed to lead from
the front but abdicated the task to incompetent and narrow-minded
officials.
The PDP noted that the poor handling of the COVID-19 response has
further highlighted the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led Federal
Government’s lack of capacity to manage important national issues.
Our party invites Nigerians to note that the three states, where the
Buhari-led Federal Government took up the management of the COVID-19
pandemic, namely; Abuja, Lagos and Ogun states, had recorded very high
statistics in infection and fatality rates compared to states where it
was not involved.
This shows that had President Buhari involved the states and allowed for
a multilayered, people-based approach in the distribution of
palliatives, development of therapeutics and implementation of
protocols, the situation would have been better handled.
Now that the Buhari Presidency has come to its wits end, our party urges
governors elected on the platform of the PDP to assist their colleagues
in the APC with information, strategies and expertise, for effective
national response for the pandemic.
Furthermore, the PDP urges Mr. President and his PTF to do the nation a
favour by taking accommodation in the backseat and allowing competent
hands to manage the situation.
Our party urges the state governors to brace up to the occasion and
rally the private sector for homegrown solutions, which the APC-led
Federal Government had failed to achieve due to sheer incompetence and
corruption.
The PDP therefore charges the Buhari Presidency to immediately give
detailed account of all funds and other resources it claimed to have
spent, particularly on palliatives; a scheme that have been exposed to
be a huge scam.
Signed:
Kola Ologbondiyan
National Publicity Secretary
