Don’t let Buhari hoodwink you into endorsing him, PDP tells Theresa May

THE Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has advised British Prime Minister, Therese May, expected in Abuja Wednesday, not to allow herself to be hoodwinked by resisting “a choreographed plan” by the Presidency to secure her endorsement.

The party has asked her to use her state visit to Nigeria to “uncover the dismal state of our nation.”

In a statement issued by Kola Ologbondiyan, its National Publicity Secretary, in Abuja on Tuesday, the party also called on the British leader “not to allow the Buhari Presidency to confine her to the parlours of the Presidential Villa, but to insist on visiting other parts of the nation to enable her directly appreciate the level of lies and false performance indices the Federal Government has been dishing out to the world.”

The party added: “This is particularly as 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, for which Nigerians are clamouring for a new president under the PDP.”

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The PDP further charged 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 Presidency-controlled security forces.”

The PDP also wants the British leader to task President Buhari “on his widely condemned stand against the supremacy of the rule of law in addition to records of violation of human rights in Nigeria, including government’s disobedience to court orders, reported extra-judicial killings, torture, unlawful political arrests and detention, restriction of free speech and media freedom and lack of government’s accountability as detailed in report by various international bodies, including Transparency International (TI), Amnesty International (AI) and US Department of States.

“The British leader should also elicit discussions with the President on the recent report by Price Waterhouse Cooper showing humongous corruption in his administration, including the circumstances surrounding the N4 trillion unremitted oil money in agencies under his direct supervision as minister.”

The PDP urged Prime Minister May, to engage President Buhari on “the violent rigging of elections under his watch, and extract commitment from him on his administration’s preparedness for a free, fair and credible general elections in 2019, especially as there are apprehensions across Nigeria, that his actions, utterances and body language suggest otherwise.”