Criticisms have continued to trail President Muhammadu Buhari’s visit to Ghana, especially, his offer to help the West African nation tackle corruption.
To the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in its reaction, said Buhari should rather learn some governing and nation-building skills from Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo rather than offering any form of help to his country.
While listing what he described as the numerous achievement of Akufo-Addo’s administration viz-a-viz the failures of Buhari, the opposition party said the aim of the Nigerian leader was to use the visit to Ghana to amass international support for his bid to get re-elected.
“We know that the Presidency sought to use the Ghana visit to curry international endorsement for their 2019 reelection bid, unfortunately, they reaped a harvest of international embarrassment and ridicule”, the statement partly reads.
The party also accused the President of exhibiting crass hypocrisy when he reeled out the achievements of his Ghanaian counterpart during the visit: “When President Buhari was reeling out President Akufo-Addo achievements in his one year in office; his ingenious approach to job creation; the farming for job initiative, the senior high school free education, one district-one factory projects and one village-one dam initiatives among others; we hope our dear President reflected on the fact that back home, his inept government had instead, wrecked our once robust economy, the reason he had nothing to present to the world at the ceremony.
“We hope President Buhari recollects that unlike his Ghanaian counterpart, his administration had nothing to show in its first year in office. Our President recalls that under his own watch, over 8 million Nigerians have lost their jobs, 16 million remained unemployed, 18 million more were underemployed while another 27.44 million refused to work for various reasons related to frustrations occasioned by the negative policies of his government.”
“In the same vein, we hope President Buhari notes that unlike his Ghanaian counterpart, who initiated development projects and opened factories, in Nigeria under his watch, many factories have shut down, infrastructures are collapsing, inflation has soared, fuel price has moved from N86.50 to N250-N300 per liter in various parts of his country, while the nation’s debt profile has continued to escalate”, PDP added.
PDP insisted that Buhari has not done well in the fight against corruption in Nigeria and therefore, in no position place to help another country.
The party asserted that anti-graft agencies in Nigeria are being used to hunt members of the opposition party as against corruption.
“Furthermore, when President Buhari offered to assist Ghana in her fight against corruption, we hope he remembered that the world already knows that back home, his administration reeks of allegations bordering on corruption in high places and the Transparency International (TI) report has exposed the fact that corruption has worsened in Nigeria under his government.”
"Today, the world knows that what obtains in Nigeria is direct persecution of opposition members under the guise of a fight against corruption, which has been aided by intimidation of the judiciary and incessant harassment of journalists.”