PDP Slams Buhari Over Controversial 'Nigerians Are Free To Go' Comment

Posted by Thandiubani on Wed 24th Oct, 2018 - tori.ng

Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari has been slammed by the opposition party over a controversial comment.

President Muhammadu Buhari

The Peoples Democratic Party has condemned President Muhammadu Buhari’s statement in which he said Nigerians “who feel they have another country may choose to go.”

According to a report by Punch, the PDP described the statement as unpresidential, defeatist and characteristic of what it called failed leadership.

Speaking on behalf of the party, National Publicity Secretary of the party, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, in a statement in Abuja on Wednesday, said President Buhari, in saying that Nigerians, “who feel they have another country may choose to go”, had further confirmed that “he is completely insensitive to the plight of our citizens and has no solution to the myriad of problems his incompetent and disorganized administration has caused our nation.”

He described the President’s comment as “unfatherly” and a direct slap on the sensibilities of millions of Nigerians, who he said, had been painfully bearing the economic hardship, hunger and starvation which he said was allegedly caused by President Buhari’s administration.

Ologbondiyan said these were the problems that were forcing Nigerians to embark on what he called suicide missions and slavery as survival options.

He said, “Such comment is a spit on the graves of thousands of compatriots killed by marauders in various parts of the country, while the Buhari Presidency and the All Progressives Congress remained aloof without decisive actions to end the carnage and bring the perpetrators of the bloodlettings to book.

“Mr. President’s comment is also a mockery on millions of Nigerians who have lost their businesses and whose families have been wrecked by the anti-people policies of the Buhari-led APC administration.

“Since Mr. President now knows that Nigerians across the board are hurting over the failures of his administrations, the least he, as an elected leader, should have done, was to accept responsibility, rise up to the occasion and find solutions, or at least, have some soothing words to suffering Nigerians instead of dismissing their pains and asking them to abandon their fatherland.

“This remark by Mr. President also reminds of his widely condemned outbursts against our youths who he held in disdain as lazy and lovers of freebies.”