THE Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Thursday decried President Muhammadu Buhari’s inability to productively engage British Prime Minister, Theresa May, thereby directly bungling the nation’s opportunity to draw maximum economic dividends from her visit before she left the country.
This was contained in a statement made available to newsmen in Abuja yesterday by the National Publicity of the Party, Hon. Kola Ologbondiyan.
According to the Statement, the party expressed deep concerns that President Buhari could not even assemble a competent economic team to engage the British leader and had also not considered it expedient to muster a team for strategic engagement with German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, who was billed to commence a state visit to Nigeria soon.
The statement reads, “It is indeed unfortunate and completely unpatriotic that instead of thinking of ways to draw economic dividends from the important state visits, President Buhari is rather more interested in using them to secure international endorsements for his selfish re-election bid.
“We all saw a British Prime Minister who was favourably disposed to a healthy and productive engagement on critical areas of our economy and how President Buhari and his officials, out of sheer incompetence, failed to seize the opportunity for the benefit of our nation.
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” Instead, the Buhari Presidency was more interested in photo-ops and diplomatic niceties, perhaps to score cheap political points, indicative of how our Presidency has diminished in the last three years.
“The robust and very fruitful engagement the British leader later had with Kenyan President, Uhuru Kenyatta, shows how low, the standard of national leadership has fallen in our country under the Buhari Presidency.
“The PDP, therefore, urges the Buhari Presidency to stop being a cog in the wheel of progress for the nation.
“President Buhari should immediately end this government lethargy and seek help in setting up a team comprising of very competent and knowledgeable hands to interface with the German Chancellor and her team so that Nigeria will benefit from her visit.
” We caution President Buhari not to seek to use the visit of the German leader for another lame attempt at international endorsement, which has continued to elude him while attracting embarrassing backlashes to the nation.
“Moreover, such is no longer useful for him, as Nigerians and the international community have already reached a consensus that our dear nation needs a more competent and resourceful President, who has respect for rule of law and the overall interest of the people.”
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