The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has called on the Presidency to immediately disclose the cost of President Muhammadu Buhari’s trip to the United Kingdom for the just-concluded Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).
This comes as the main opposition party has maintained that President Buhari’s attendance at the meeting was a colossal waste.
Recall that the President had travelled to London on April 9 shortly after declaring his intention to seek re-election at the All Progressives Congress’ National Executive Council Meeting and returned to Nigeria on Saturday, April 21.
In a statement on Sunday by Kola Ologbondiyan, PDP National Publicity Secretary, it claimed that Buhari and his ministers wasted tax payers’ money at the meeting with no tangible result.
This, it attributed to what it called the ‘direct consequence of his negative comments about Nigerians and his presentation of false performance indices to his hosts’.
Ologbondiyan berated the Presidency for returning from CHOGM ‘with nothing but wasted opportunities’.
The statement reads: “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”.
OWEDE AGBAJILEKE, Abuja
