The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says Nigerians must put the “harrowing experiences” of 2020 behind them and go into 2021 with renewed zeal.
The main opposition party stated this in a New Year message signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan.
According to the PDP, 2020 “witnessed untold bloodletting and excruciating economic hardship brought by the insensitive and treasury-looting All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Buhari administration”.
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The party commends Nigerians for their resilience and an unshaken resolve to stand by one another “in the face of total failure of governance under the APC, a party that has portrayed itself as a vehicle for power grabbing and treasury looting”.
The PDP said it recalled with sorrow how the APC and the Buhari administration abandoned “our compatriots to a life of misery at the mercy of looters, bandits, terrorists, kidnappers and vandals, while President Muhammadu Buhari, in whose hands Nigerians entrusted their fate, hide inside the Presidential villa”.
“It is lamentable that the APC has been in romance with killers and marauders, after destroying all modalities set up by the PDP administration, which had pushed the terrorists to the fringes by 2015.
“Sadly, today, terrorists have become so emboldened by the failures of the APC to the extent of seizing communities, beheading our compatriots and even kidnapping over 600 schoolboys in Mr. President’s home state, Katsina, at the time his security machinery took over the state, where he had gone to holiday while our nation drifts.
“Like an act in a tragedy series, Nigerians watched hopelessly, as a people without a leader, while the President of Chad, Idris Derby, personally led his troops into the Nigerian soil to liberate communities and Nigerians soldiers held captive by terrorists.
“On the economy front, our compatriots exhibited resilience and persevered in the face of worst economic strangulation occasioned by unbridled looting by the APC leaders and officials of the Buhari administration resulting in the wrecking of our naira, closure of millions of businesses, frightening unemployment rate, agonizing poverty and infrastructural collapse.
“The attendant pressure on families resulted in a surge in suicide cases, slavery missions, divorces and buckled social life. There is hardly a family in Nigeria, under Buhari’s watch, which does not bear the deep gash of security or economic tragedy brought by the APC.
“Our compatriots were also subjected to the worst form of hardship as officials of the APC and those of the Buhari administration pillaged COVID-19 funds, leaving Nigerians at the mercy of the adverse effect of the pandemic.
“It is imperative to state that under the APC and Buhari administration, governance became a tool of suppression. Human right abuses became the new normal. Nigerians youths who tried to raise the consciousness of government to the suffering in the land were viciously subdued, not a few were murdered by the agents of the APC.
“The aforementioned callous experiences notwithstanding, our party holds that as we march into the New Year, there must be a change of narrative for our dear nation.
“We therefore call on Nigerians, having become fed up with the APC and the Buhari administration, to strengthen their bond of unity in our collectively patriotic resolve to recue our nation from the stranglehold of misrule.
“The PDP prays for our nation and urges all hands to be on the deck to ensure a happy and more peaceful 2021.”