House explains invitation as PDP flays Buhari over insecurity

By Henry Omunu & Tunde Opalana

Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Benjamin Kalu, has explained that its invitation to President Muhammadu Buhari was not to ridicule him over growing insecurity in the country.

Rep. Kalu made the clarification while speaking with newsmen on Thursday in Abuja, following Buhari’s nonappearance at the House yesterday.

The House spokesman stated that the President was rather invited for engagement on ways to address security challenges.

According to him, the idea of the invitation was to have a feedback mechanism on the security situation in the country, stressing that the partnership established by the 9th National Assembly with the executive would be sustained.

He however, said that since Nigeria was operating a democracy hinged on party supremacy, the President can decide to follow the advice of his political grouping on any issue.

“The President is not more powerful than the party, but if he took a decision and his party took another, he must oblige the party,” Kalu said.

He insisted that the House did not act in error by inviting the President as it has the right to investigate issues bothering the country.

But the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has knocked the President for reneging on his earlier promise to honour the invitation.

PDP National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus lambasted the president for failing to respect the contract of being a responsible leader which he signed with Nigerians who brought him to power.

Secondus insisted that Buhari has disregarded Nigerians by disregarding the invitation by the parliament to come and explain efforts of his government in addressing the precarious insecurity situation in the country.

The chairman took the occasion of presenting the stewardship account of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) under his leadership in the past three years on Thursday in Abuja to lament the worrisome state of the affairs of the nation.

He said Buhari’s instability on a vital issue as insecurity that is overwhelming the nation, underscores PDP’s position that nobody is in-charge of the nation and that the APC administration is a broken government.

Secondus said: “disregarding the nation’s parliament is disregarding Nigeria people because they are representatives of the people.

The truth which is worrisome is that the President either does not know what is happening or does know what to do otherwise he should not be afraid to face the people.

“The hard fact facing all of us now is that this regime has woefully failed Nigerians in all ramifications.

“It’s a shame that a government that came to power brandishing its military credential as a General with the propaganda to wipe away Boko Haram in 100 days is there 5 years plus presiding over the worst security situation in our history with no clear direction what to do and even afraid to face the country’s the parliament to explain what he is doing.”

He said the attitude of the President shows that he and the All Progressives Congress (APC) did not actually win the last general election but manipulated the process to access power through electoral fraud, hence, the resolve of the ruling party to be indifferent to the yearnings and aspirations of the citizenry.

Secondus further said: “Nigerians had earlier realized their mistakes of 2015 and also accepted our apology for any short coming.

We carried out one of the most effective campaigns going to the people with issue based messages not propaganda.

Nigerians accepted these messages and were ready and charged to vote out the APC whose incompetence and incapacity to govern had become apparent.

“But what Nigerians never envisaged was that the APC and President Muhammadu Buhari who came to power through a transparent and credible election was not going to conduct free and fair election in 2019.

“As a prelude to their agenda of holding on to power when it was obvious that Nigerians did not want them, all institutions of democracy, the legislature, the judiciary, the opposition and the media were made targets of intimidation and harassment.

“You all could recall the shocking and unprecedented unilateral removal of the Chief Justice of the Federation, Justice Walter Onnoghen, you also recall that midnight attack and arrest of some Judges and Justices by security operatives of state in the name of fighting corruption.

“We all are witnesses to the intimidation meted out to the parliament, how the then Senate President, Bukola Saraki was subjected to all kinds of harassment, how the mace the symbol of the Senate was stolen in a broad daylight and how the entrance to the National Assembly was blocked by masked security operatives to prevent members going in.

“We also saw how security men were deployed to help the ruling party have an advantage over other parties in elections.”

Reviewing the activities and stewardship of the leadership of PDP in the last three years, he said theNWC has repositioned the party.

He said the party under his leadership succeeded in a rebranding campaign message of reposition, rebuild to regain which were designed to recreate and rebrand the PDP.

He spoke further: “I am proud to report that the party is not at the level where we met it.

We took over the party when it was still trying to come out of the trauma of losing election and being in opposition for two years under an intolerant ruling party, the APC.

“We met a psychologically traumatized party struggling to adjust to opposition life after 16 years in power.

“We inherited party that had issues with internal democracy, delegates were not having the final say on who flies the flag of the party in an election.

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Names of winners were randomly and blatantly changed in Abuja with disregard to the people and the requirements of our constitution.”

Projecting into the next one year when the tenure of the current executive will end, he said the NWC has lined up some programs which include e-membership registration to begin in 2021 unfailingly having secured the approval of its take-off from the National Executive Committee.

He added that the party intended to finalize the peace and reconciliation process within the with a view to entering the general election as one united and focused political family.