PDP Knocks Budget, Says It’s Harvest of Deceit, Empty Claims

•Describes Tinubu’s New Year address as admission of failure 

•Labour dismisses his speech as arrogant display of dishonesty

Chuks Okocha in Abuja

Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), yesterday, criticised President Bola Tinubu’s 2024 budget as a harvest of deceit, false claims, and empty promises.

PDP described Tinubu’s New Year address as unpresidential, uninspiring, and a waste of valuable time. It said the president’s speech did not address any of the critical issues plaguing the country.

In a similar vein, Labour Party (LP) said the president’s speech lacked substance, stating that most right-thinking Nigerians are appalled by the hollowness of the New Year address.

In a statement by PDP National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, the party said Nigerians were dismayed, as Tinubu took to rhetoric and failed to address the critical issues of insecurity, decayed infrastructure, comatose manufacturing and productive sectors, crushing 28 per cent inflation rate, continuing plunge of the Naira, unemployment, poverty and economic hardship occasioned by the reckless, ill-advised and insensitive policies and programmes of his administration.

According to the statement, “President Tinubu failed to address the vexatious issue of incompetence, insensitivity, massive profligacy, unbridled treasury-looting inherent in his administration, which have put our nation in dire straits.

“More distressing is that President Tinubu had no words in his New Year address for the Christmas eve genocidal massacre of over 200 Nigerians by terrorists in Plateau State and the murder of over 5,000 citizens in Plateau and other states of the federation under his watch since May 29, 2023. What manner of a president?”

PDP said it was an unpardonable assault on the sensibility of Nigerians for Tinubu to assert, “Everything I have done in office, every decision I have taken and every trip I have undertaken outside the shores of our land, since I assumed office on 29 May 2023, have been done in the best interest of our country.

“On the contrary, all decisions and actions of the Tinubu presidency, including the approval of increase in the pump price of fuel from N167 to over N700 per litre, devaluation of the naira with the consequential high costs and hardship, skewing of the 2024 budget in favour of luxury appetite of the presidency and APC leaders without concrete policies to revive the economy and create jobs, the wasteful foreign trips with political cronies and failure to address the mindless killings across the nation cannot be said to be in the interest of our country.

“Furthermore, the undermining of the constitution and institutions of democracy, including attempts to emasculate the National Assembly, and compromising of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) through the appointment of APC card-carrying members as Resident Electoral Commissioners cannot be in the interest of the nation.”

PDP said Tinubu’s claims that his actions and policies, with their calamitous consequences, were in the interest of the country further confirmed that this administration was deliberately subjecting Nigerians to hardship as a way to suppress them to surrender to totalitarianism.

The statement said, “Also, in stating that ‘from the boardrooms at Broad Street in Lagos to the main-streets of Kano and Nembe Creeks in Bayelsa, I hear the groans of Nigerians who work hard every day to provide for themselves and their families,’ Tinubu admitted that his administration had plunged Nigerians into pain, anguish and misery.

“President Tinubu ought to have used the opportunity presented by the New Year to apologise to Nigerians and marshal out steps to address our national challenges, including those responsible for the exiting of multinational manufacturing companies and other businesses from our country.”

LP, in its own reaction by the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Obiora Ifoh, said, “If anything, the speech conveyed to Nigerians the high level of hypocrisy, deceit and lack of empathy, which has become the guiding principle of the All Progressives Congress administration, which Tinubu leads.

“It is depressing to note that the president and his handlers didn’t deem it fit to include a word of comfort for the families of over 200 persons killed by terrorists during the Christmas Eve massacre in Plateau State. What a shame!”

The opposition party said the president’s helplessness in the face of his glaring failure to address the critical issues of insecurity, decayed infrastructure, collapse of the manufacturing and productive sectors, inflation and the Naira to Dollar exchange rate, which was spiralling out of control, was written all over his New Year speech.

It also said there was no word in the address on the alleged massive looting of the country’s resources by Tinubu’s appointees and leaders of his party in various sectors.

LP said in the statement, “How does his ill-advised decision on fuel subsidy removal without a plan to ameliorate the suffering of Nigerians translate into an action taken in the national interest?

“Of what benefit was the millions of the nation’s dwindling foreign reserves frittered away under the guise of attending the climate change summit in Dubai to Nigerians?

“While we call for prayers for our nation in this critical point of our history, we will continue to call on the National Assembly to look beyond party lines and ensure that the spirit and the letter of our constitution is upheld at all times.”