The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), yesterday described President Muhammadu Buhari’s trip to United Kingdom, UK, where he attended the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) as a “colossal waste” of public resources.
PDP said Buhari was unable to attract investments to the country during his trip to London.
The party insisted that rather than attracting investors, Buhari succeeded in de-marketing the country through his unguarded comments.
In a statement issued by its spokesperson, Kola Ologbondiyan, the former ruling party noted that Buhari returned to Nigeria “empty handed with no tangible dividend.”
The party also urged the president to apologise to Nigerian youths over his comment that they are lazy.
The statement reads, “President Muhammadu Buhari’s attendance of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in United Kingdom, which came at huge cost to the nation, was a colossal waste.
“Nigerians are not surprised that the President returned last night, empty handed and with no tangible dividend, a development which is the direct consequence of his negative comments about Nigerians and his presentation of false performance indices to his hosts.
“While other commonwealth heads of state used the occasion to negotiate businesses and showcase the potentials and opportunities in their countries, our President only succeeded in de-marketing our dear country and painting our citizens, particularly the youths, in the negative.
“Nigerians may recall that during his meeting with British Prime Minister, Theresa May, President Buhari, in the quest to hide the failures of his administration and push his 2019 re-election bid, Mr President downplayed the worsened economic and security situation in the country under his watch, but opted for self praise and brandishing unsubstantiated record of performance.
“This self-serving stance ultimately blocked all beneficial bilateral engagements that could have helped secure the much needed international interventions in those critical areas.
“Two days after, President Buhari again took the stage at the Commonwealth Business Forum in London and announced to international investors that Nigerian youths, a demography that forms the bulk of our nation’s workforce, are uneducated and lovers of freebies.
“We were therefore not surprised that no serious investor sealed any meaningful investment deal with Nigeria as dividend from the CHOGM.
“It is also instructive to note that despite the public outrage that trailed his denigration of our youths, the Buhari Presidency has not offered any apology to the nation, particularly our youths, thus further confirming the disdain in which this administration holds our young men and woman.
Meanwhile, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday challenged President Muhammadu Buhari to give an account of his ministers and other government officials who abandoned their scheduled meeting with investors in the United States to gallivant in that country.
This was contained in a statement made available to news men in Abuja yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary of the Party, Hon. Kola Oogbondiyan.
The ministers reportedly abandoned the foreign investors and went on a shopping spree in highbrow shops of the United States, at the time Nigerians were looking up to them to negotiate deals and bring in investments into the country.
According to the Party, “this embarrassing development is indeed a clear reflection of the recklessness and laissez-faire attitude of the Buhari-led All Progressives Congress (APC) administration towards governance, resulting in the biting economic recession and others woes plaguing our nation under President Buhari’s watch.
“How can APC government officials sent to attend investors’ meetings abandon their duties and engage in personal leisure abroad? Painfully, they blame everybody but themselves for the choking economic situation of the country in the last three years.
PDP holds that these government officials had the temerity to pursue personal interests across the United State because they knew that even if their atrocious act were brought to the attention of Mr. President, he will claim that he is not aware.
“This is more so as Mr. President himself brought no dividend from the Commonwealth Head of Government Meeting (CHOGM), where he de-marketed our nation with negative utterances.
“We, therefore, urge the National Assembly to spare no rods but to immediately summon the ministers named in the saga, including Chief Audu Ogbeh (Agriculture), Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu (Science and Technology), Alhaji Lai Mohammed (Information) Babatunde Fashola (Power), Dr. Ibe Kachikwu (Minister of State for Petroleum Resources), Kemi Adeosun (Finance) and Kayode Fayemi (Solid minerals).
“It is now clear to all that the APC does not have the interest of our country at heart and Nigerians must spare no efforts in joining forces with the PDP to vote them out and reinstate a purposeful and productive administration, come 2019.”
Lamenting over Nigerian Ministers absent last Saturday at an investors meeting put together as part of the IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington DC, United States of America.
This was despite the fact that some of them scheduled for the meeting were in the United States of America at the appointed time.
This development has drawn the ire of the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, who lambasted the ministers for missing the meeting.
Sanusi, a former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, said: “Nigeria may be the biggest economy, but an investor may decide that rather than go through the hassle of investing, say $500 million in Nigeria, he may decide to invest $100 million each in Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, South Africa, or Rwanda.
“I’ll give you a simple example: we had a meeting today (yesterday) with investors.
“We were supposed to start at 10am.
“So I came in early, and I was taken to the Nigerian Ambassador’s office to sit down, while investors were waiting for me outside.
“That is not how you attract investors.
“Also, we had a list of top Nigerians that were to attend the meeting like the Vice President and some Ministers.
“Some of these ministers were in town but they didn’t come.
“You (Nigeria) invite US Commerce Secretary, some top investors and your Ministers are in Washington and they do not come to talk to the investors about Nigeria.
“That is not done.
“I bet you that if the Rwandan Embassy had this kind of forum, President Kagame himself would be there telling people to come to his country.
“There is absolutely no reason why the Nigerian Embassy in the US will organise “Nigeria is open for business” forum with Nigerian ministers and some governors in town and not in here to meet these investors.
“And there is no reason to start one hour late, or that our public address systems should not be working.
“This is the first point of entry for these investors.
“They haven’t even come to Nigeria and this is their experience already.
“He may say that if I’m having this experience in DC, what will happen when I go to Abuja or Kano?
“How do I get to see the governor?
“Will I wait 10 hours?
“And for these kind of people (investors) in DC, they had other Heads of States to meet, World Bank to meet and an hour is a lot of time for them to wait for you.
“So, I think we need to look at those kind of things that investors look at and have a very honest conversation, sector by sector, region by region, state by state, what do we need to do to make those areas attractive.”
Sanusi, however, said investors are still interested in investing in the country’s agriculture, mining and technology sectors and not just oil.
He said Nigeria had a chance of getting foreign investors to come in and invest in areas that would help in diversifying the economy if they behave more professionally.