76th birthday: Go back to Daura and rest, PDP tells Buhari

 

The Peoples Democratic Party on Monday advised President Muhammadu Buhari to return to his house in Daura and take a deserved rest.

Responding to Buhari’s plea for more time to fix the nation, the PDP said the job of returning the country to the path of glory would not be given to a man who had been asked to always sleep and rest.

The National Publicity Secretary of the party, Mr Kola Ologbondiyan, told one of our correspondents that the President should return to his house in Daura, Katsina State, where he said he (President Buhari) should take a deserved rest.

He said, “We don’t have time to waste anymore. The country cannot afford a sleeping President. President Buhari has done what he could do, but unfortunately, his best is not good enough for the country.

“He told Nigerians about four years ago that old age would slow him down. I’m not sure he is getting younger since he said that. The same President also said that his doctors had asked him to rest, eat and sleep more. As much as he needs all these, we need to tell him that the country cannot afford such a leader at this critical time when all hands must be on deck.

“We have a high number of unemployed youths, citizens and soldiers are being killed by terrorists, the roads are bad, the economy is bad and the President who had been asked to be sleeping is asking for more time. Ask him, more time to do what?” Ologbondiyan said that as a father, the President needs to go home and rest.

Ologbondiyan had earlier in a statement on Monday said the current state of Nigeria had become horrendous for the average Nigerian, adding that rather than continuing as President in 2019, Buhari should go back to his hometown, Daura.

Ologbondiyan, in a statement on Buhari’s 76 birthday celebration, said Buhari had attained a father-figure position and should do everything to respect the aspirations and will of the Nigerian people on all issues, particularly the 2019 general elections.

He said, “If President Buhari looks at the state of the nation today, he will discover, and we believe he is aware, that the situation has become horrendous for the average Nigerian.”

The PDP spokeperson urged Buhari to leave a lasting legacy by doing all within his powers to ensure that Nigeria enjoyed peace; ensure that rules were obeyed and that the sensibilities of the people were fully respected.

Ologbondiyan said, “In this regard, the 2019 general elections place a heavy responsibility on the shoulders of President Buhari to guarantee peaceful, credible, free and fair elections, particularly, the presidential election, by ensuring that all electoral laws and rules are obeyed; that opposition members are not molested; that the amendment to the Electoral Act is signed; as well as to declare like his predecessor, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, did in 2015, that his 2019 re-election ambition is not worth the blood of any Nigerian.”

The opposition party prayed that God grant the President good health and many more years ahead.

PDP’s advice to President infantile, says APC

But the APC National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu, said the call on the President to pack and go was not the popular wish of Nigerians who were daily counting their gains under the Buhari government having gone through hell under 16 years misrule of the PDP.

He said the call could only come from those who were not in tune with reality and could not survive without government money.

He said, “They have made the call severally and are repeating it because they have lost ideas of what to use to campaign.

“PDP ran the economy of this country aground. President Buhari has restored the country to the path of economic progress and making it safe to attract foreign investors.

“They and their cohorts should tell Nigerians why they deserve a return and stop making infantile statements.”