Your CHOGM trip, a colossal waste, PDP tells Buhari

The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has described President Muhammadu Buhari’s attendance at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in United Kingdom, at huge cost to the nation, as a colossal waste and of no economic value to the country.

The PDP, in a statement by its spokesperson, Kola Ologbondiyan yesterday, noted that no serious investor sealed any meaningful investment deal with Nigeria as dividend from the CHOGM trip.

The party said the president’s trip is of no tangible dividend, a development which is the direct consequence of his “negative comments about Nigerians and his presentation of false performance indices to his hosts”.

“While other commonwealth heads of state used the occasion to negotiate businesses and showcase the potentials and opportunities in their countries, our President only succeeded in de-marketing our dear country and painting our citizens, particularly the youths, in the negative.

“Nigerians may recall that during his meeting with British Prime Minister, Theresa May, President Buhari, in the quest to hide the failures of his administration and push his 2019 re-election bid, Mr. President downplayed the worsened economic and security situation in the country under his watch, but opted for self-praise and brandishing unsubstantiated record of performance.

“This self-serving stance ultimately blocked all beneficial bilateral engagements that could have helped secure the much needed international interventions in those critical areas.

“Two days after, President Buhari again took the stage at the Commonwealth Business Forum in London and announced to international investors that Nigerian youths, a demography that forms the bulk of our nation’s workforce, are uneducated and lovers of freebies”, he said.

The party as well knocked the Buhari Presidency for not offering any apology to the nation, particularly the youths, over the public outrage that trailed Buhari’s denigration of Nigerian youths, stressing that this has further confirmed the disdain which his administration have for the youths.

Preempting the government, the party said “having returned from CHOGM with nothing but wasted opportunities, the next move by the Buhari Presidency would be to hugely mobilize their spin-doctors with public resources and direct them to inundate the media with claims of imaginary gains in an effort to befool Nigerians”.

The PDP however, requested the Presidency to immediately make public the cost of this trip on the national coffers, noting that the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its Federal Government have irredeemably failed and can no longer represent national interest and aspiration.