PDP: Tinubu’s Speech Empty, Dashes Hope of Nigerians

•Queries why it fails to address fixing or stimulating refineries  

•It’s unrealistically, far from realities, HURIWA declares

Chuks Okocha in Abuja

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), yesterday, reacted to Monday’s nationwide broadcast by President Bola Tinubu over the planned industrialist action by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), and dismissed it as. Empty, subsequently dashing the hopes of Nigerians

Addressing newsmen, National Publicity Secretary of the party, Hon. Debo Ologunagba, said even more disturbing was the fact that the speech did not address fixing or stimulating the refineries.

At the same time, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, (HURIWA), described the speech as academic, highfalutin and totally detached from the realities of the Nigerian masses, who were further mired in poverty and lack since Tinubu assumed office.

According to the PDP, “Yesterday evening, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) dashed the hope of Nigerians, and especially his now disillusioned supporters with his staged address in feeble defence of his badly planned and hurriedly-executed polices that have worsened economic hardship and uncertainty across the country in the last two months.”

The PDP berated the recourse to such vacuous, illusory and showy mal-administration, which further revealed lack of leadership ingenuity and focus in the management of the affairs of the nation.

“The PDP is appalled that the address is another litany of false promises hurriedly put together by his handlers in the desperate bid to hoodwink and beguile Nigerians, blackmail Labour Fronts and divert public attention from the life-discounting experiences imposed by the APC government.

“Such antics and play on the psychology of Nigerians with propaganda and empty promises are consistent with the deceptive trajectory of the APC since its emergence in 2014,” the PDP said.

Insisting the speech was a horrifying  reminder of APC’s bogus promises under Tinubu as National Leader in 2015, the party said, “Three million jobs per year; Making Naira equal in value to the US Dollar; Provision of Small Business Loan Guarantee Scheme to create at least 5 million new jobs by 2019; and Provision of allowances to discharged but unemployed Youth Corps members for twelve (12) months,” were part of the counterfeit promises.

He listed others to include: “Creation of a Social Welfare Programme of at least N5,000 for 25 million poorest and most vulnerable citizens; Establishment of N300 billion Regional Growth Fund (average of N50bn in each Geo-Political region); Imaginary improvement in our agricultural produce with phantom pyramid of rice which turned out to be ‘pyramid of lies.

“Nigerians are aware that the APC, with Senator Tinubu as National Leader, never fulfilled any of these promises, but rather remained unaccountable and turned our once prosperous nation to the poverty capital of the world where over 100 million citizens cannot afford their daily meals and other basic necessities of life.

“What then is the value of Senator Tinubu’s new promises of N75 billion for new jobs in 2024; N125 billion to SMEs; N50,000 each to 1,300 nano business and cultivation of 750,000 hectares of land for food, all without concrete policy and implementation plan, and which at best are openings for corrupt patronage and siphoning of public funds?

“We invite Nigerians to note that a comprehensive review of the speech shows that it is merely aspirational, meant only to mesmerize the citizens as it is completely bereft of any concrete plans to tackle the energy crisis, production issues, monetary challenges and worsening insecurity in our country,” he said.

On its part, HURIWA, in a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, said the president failed to tell Nigerians his plans to resuscitate public refineries after the previous All Progressives Congress (APC) government of Muhammadu Buhari spent billions of naira renovating the four public refineries.

It dismissed most of the proposed palliative measures as empty rhetoric for as long as the government decided to punish poor Nigerians but has no strategy to catch and prosecute crude oil thieves, who according to the rights ensured that even as a broke nation, Nigeria lost $10 billion to crude oil theft in seven months.

“At current prices, the stolen oil is worth more than $10 billion, which is equivalent to N4.3 trillion (at N430 to a dollar). This financial loss is more than 50 per cent of Nigeria’s external reserves. It is also more than double Nigeria’s total revenue between January and April, a period when Nigeria’s total revenue was unable to service its debt and the country had to borrow for everything else including payment of workers.,” he said.