The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says the unprecedented public resentment and the resort to heavy security during President Muhammadu Buhari’s Thursday’s visit to Lagos state is a loud testimony of the sinking image of the President and that of his dysfunctional All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state.
The party also lampooned President Buhari for failing to initiate or execute any project in Lagos state since assumption of office.
It also described described the visit as a ridiculous face-saving stunt that saw President Buhari commissioning just anything, including a bus stop.
PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, in a statement on Friday, said President Buhari should not allow himself to be deceived by praise singers at the Tinubu Colloquium, urging him to draw a lesson from the public resentment that trailed his visit.
Usually, citizens throng out, with joy, in open streets, to receive their leaders, but the opposite was the case in Lagos when the APC completely locked down the city and deployed heavy security to restrain the people, having realized the citizens’ overwhelming indignation against the President.
It was obvious that President Buhari’s handlers were mortally afraid of his being embarrassed by Lagosians, who are direct victims of the noxious policies of the Buhari Presidency, including the discredited monetary, foreign exchange and import restriction policies, which had led to the collapse of private businesses; multiple taxes and general government ineptitude, nepotism and dictatorial tendencies in the last three years under President Buhari.
The handlers had to lockdown the city, regardless of the huge economic loss and inconvenience to citizens and holed their principal into the safety of the colloquium hall where he was surrounded by praise singers, away from the people.
Lagosians are aware that Mr. President suddenly remembered the state just because elections are around the corner.
They have not forgotten that this was the same leader who, in 1984, canceled the Lagos metro rail project only to come back 34 years after, without any form of remorse, to commission a regular bus stop built the state government.
It is most tragic that while the President of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo, who hosted President Buhari early this month, was commissioning factories in all districts of his country to mark his one year in office, our President could only offer Lagos, with its over 22 million population, the commissioning of a bus stop, which unfortunately, he did not even build?
If President Buhari had not sabotaged the people of Lagos by aborting the rail project in 1984, the state would have become one of the most advanced cities in the world by now.
Today, his administration is again stifling the growth of the state.
Instead of bringing blessing to Lagos, President Buhari’s visit brought more suffering, economic loss and pains, as the lockdown cost the state a major part of its $250 million daily GDP.
It is also instructive to inform that contrary to impression of achievements, the Buhari-led Federal Government has no input whatsoever in both the Eko Atlantis City and the $1.5 billion Lagos Deep Water Port, which were respectively toured and flagged off by the President during his visit.
These projects are running on public, private partnership initiated by the Lagos state government, which leveraged on the enabling business environment created by the PDP administration.
We urge President Buhari not to, in anyway, under any guise whatsoever, attempt to appropriate these projects as his achievements.
Our advice to President Buhari and his APC is that the 2019 election would not be conducted in a colloquium hall but on the streets, among the many communities of our nation, and the verdict of the people against them is already clear.
Signed:
Kola Ologbondiyan
National Publicity Secretary
