THE People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has slammed President Muhammadu Buhari over his nation-wide broadcast aired on Sunday evening in the wake of the novel coronavirus outbreak.
President Muhammadu Buhari in the broadcast highlighted the measures taken in retrospect and reeled out total lockdown of the nation’s commercial city, Lagos and Abuja, together with other essential proactive steps
In a press statement signed by the party’s national publicity secretary, obtained by TheICIR, Kola Ologbodiyan, PDP said it is rather unfortunate that Nigerians after clamouring for the presidential address, had to wait this long for an address that is empty and failed to respond to anxiety and demands of the impact of the scourge on the nation.
“The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) laments that President Muhammadu Buhari’s long-awaited address on the COVID-19 pandemic came empty and failed to address the salient demands of the impact of the scourge on our nation”
The party also claimed that Muhammadu Buhari’s address did not offer new solutions aside from the conventional methodologies available before.
“The party notes that outside the social distancing and isolation, which Nigerians had already imposed on themselves, Mr. President had no new solutions to offer our nation.”
PDP also expressed regret over Buhari’s order over the cessation of all movements in Lagos, Abuja and Ogun State for an initial period of 14 days with effect from 11 pm on Monday, March 30, saying the address did not touch real necessities of Nigerians who reside in the affected states.
“It is unfortunate that Mr. President failed to respond to demands on hope for medications, direct social palliatives, cut in taxes as well as reduction in the pump price of petroleum and crude oil in the international market”
The opposition party asked the president to retool his policy framework and implement “strategy to properly address the fears as well as the needs of Nigerians including health safety measures and real remedies that meet the anxieties of our nation at this critical time”
Nigeria at the time of filing this report has recorded over one hundred confirmed cases of the coronavirus and one death.
Samad Uthman is a multimedia journalist with the International Centre for Investigative Reporting. He tweets @sarmerdk2 and can be shot through [email protected]