The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said President Muhammadu Buhari has opened Nigeria to international ridicule from the statement credited to United States President, Donald Trump, describing President Buhari as ‘lifeless’.
Also, the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) said Trump’s statement was an affirmation of the widely held belief that Nigeria is running on autopilot
These contained in a separate statement yesterday following the outcry that greeted the report, which was published in Financial Times.
PDP said in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan noted that “such embarrassment is a backlash a nation gets when incompetent leaders, out of inferiority complex, resort to jumping around the world, desperately shopping for an endorsement from world leaders.”
The party said President Buhari has been seeking international recognition that are not predicated on any achievements from his three years in office.
It called on President Buhari to take a cue from the comments ascribed to President Trump by settling down at home and discharge his responsibilities to Nigerians or humbly accept his failings.
According to the statement, “had President Buhari not cheapened the exalted office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria by his woeful outing during his visit to the United States, President Trump would not have had the opportunity to assess his level of incompetence and make such an embarrassing statement about our president.”
PDP added that well-meaning Nigerians were now worried how other world leaders have been perceiving their president, “who has not only failed in governance but has continued to demarket our nation in the international community.”
While expressing strong reservations on Trump’s comment, PDP called for urgent reactions from the Nigerian presidency and the US White House over the matter.
CUPP in a statement by its first National Publicity Secretary, Ikenga Ugochinyere, noted that Trump’s verdict was a wake call for Nigerians to collect their permanent voter’s cards (PVCs) to enable them elect a new president in 2019.
“If President Trump took only one meeting to identify the huge problem we have been harping upon, then the world needs to pity Nigerians who have been bearing with a ‘lifeless’ president for over three years.
“Nigeria today is worse on economic indices than we were in 2015 and the national cohesion and peace accentuated by the seamless concession of victory by former president Goodluck Jonathan has been lost on the altar of nepotism, cronyism and ethnic supremacy being exhibited by President Buhari,” the CUPP added.
It noted that Trump was not referring to Buhari’s age, because himself was a septuagenarian, but rather to President Buhari’s alleged incompetence in national and international issues.
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