The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has reacted to a statement credited to the Minister of Information and Culture, Mr Lai Mohammed.
The minister had said that Nigeria is in “very safe and competent hands,” with President Muhammadu Buhari piloting the affairs of the country.
Mr Mohammed, who addressed a mini town hall meeting with the staff of the Nigerian Embassy in Madrid, Spain over the weekend, had also assured the gathering that “there is no cause for alarm.”
The PDP, however, criticised the Federal Government over the statement, saying the reality on the ground shows that the nation was on auto-pilot and drifting to the precipice.
In a statement issued on Monday by its National Publicity Secretary Kola Ologbondiyan, the opposition party claimed that Nigerians have suffered untold hardship due to the incompetence and corrupt proclivities of the All Progressives Congress (led) government.
They further noted that it was either the minister had lost touch with the reality or was trying to play with words to defend the government.
The statement read in part: “If a minister of information who ought to give the correct state of affairs can announce that a government which collapsed the nation’s once robust economy and plagued it with political tension, is indeed a safe hand, then our nation is in much more trouble under the All Progressives Congress (APC).
“How can anybody say that the same Presidency whose incompetence and bad policies are directly responsible for the massive unemployment and job losses, collapse of businesses and even the lingering fuel crisis which has brought untold hardship in the land, is indeed a safe hand?
“This is a government, under whose watch, the nation has become heavily polarised along dangerous fault lines and where citizens now live in fear and mutual suspicion; where citizens are slaughtered by the day by marauders; where hunger and strange diseases ravage the people.
“The reasonable take-away from the statement of the information minister is that this government has come to its wit’s end and has no solution for the troubles it caused the nation.
“More so, the minister’s statement has further exposed the fact that this failed administration is not the least remorseful for the pain it has caused the people, which underpins its arrogance and disdain towards Nigerians.
“We, however, urge Nigerians not to despair as the repositioned PDP stands with them in the collective quest to end the misrule of the APC in 2019.”
