By Bologi M. Maikudi
The Peoples Democratic Party has called on the British Prime Minister, Theresa May, to use her state visit to Nigeria to take on President Muhammadu Buhari on some of the shortcomings of the administration.
The spokesman of the PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan, said in a statement in Abuja on Tuesday, that there were plans by the Federal Government to hoodwink the visiting Prime Minister and the international community with false figures of the administration’s achievements.
He said, “We have been made aware of plans by the Federal Government to use the visit to dish out more lies to the international community in an effort to cover its failures in governance in the last three years.
“The PDP further charges the British Prime Minister, as a parliamentarian, to take the Buhari Presidency to task on its unabated interferences and violent attacks on the institution of the National Assembly, including threats to forcefully remove the elected presiding officers of the Senate, as well as the recent invasion and blockade of the National Assembly by the Presidency-controlled security forces.
“The PDP also wants the British leader to put President Muhammadu Buhari to task on his widely condemned stand against the supremacy of the rule of law in addition to records of the violation of human rights in Nigeria.
“This includes government’s disobedience to court orders, reported extrajudicial killings, torture, unlawful political arrests and detention, restriction of free speech and media freedom and lack of government’s accountability as detailed in the reports by various international bodies, including Transparency International, Amnesty International and the US Department of State.”
Ologbondiyan said the British leader should also elicit discussions with the President on the recent report by Price Waterhouse Cooper which he said allegedly showed humongous corruption in his administration, including the circumstances surrounding the N4tn unremitted oil money in agencies under his direct supervision as a minister.
He urged the Prime Minister to engage Buhari on the alleged violent rigging of elections under his watch and extract a commitment from him on his administration’s preparedness to organise free, fair and credible general elections in 2019.
He said there “are apprehensions across Nigeria,” that the President’s actions, utterances and body language suggest otherwise.
Meanwhile, the PDP has asked President Buhari to explain the whereabouts of the alleged N4tn unremitted oil revenue and other “financial rots in the Presidency” as detailed in the audit report by the Price Waterhouse Cooper, a firm commissioned by the administration.
The party said the report had further confirmed that Buhari had been presiding over what it described as a very corrupt administration, while at the same time posturing as Mr Integrity and pointing fingers at everyone else but himself.
The National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Mr Kola Ologbondiyan, said in a statement in Abuja on Tuesday, that Nigerians, particularly those who he said had been defending the Buhari administration, were shocked by the revelations.
He said it was more shocking that the alleged theft of N4tn could happen under the direct supervision of ‘honest’ President Buhari, as minister of Petroleum Resources.
He said, “Nigerians are also shocked to learn how some ministers under President Buhari stole N413m from agencies and parastatals using fraudulent imprests.
