The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has dismissed President Bola Tinubu’s 63rd Independence Day nationwide address as ”empty, bereft of ideas and merely aspirational in the wrong direction.”

This, the party said, is especially in the face of the harrowing and life-discounting experiences being encountered by Nigerians under the All Progressives Congress (APC) administrations.

National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Hon. Debo Ologunagba, said this in a statement, in Abuja, on Sunday.

He said, “President Tinubu’s admission in his speech that his administration is responsible for the current excruciating hardship in the country validates PDP’s position that the Tinubu-led government lacks the competence, capacity, required skills and humaneness to effectively run the affairs of the nation.

“The PDP insists that Nigerians do not need to pass through agonizing hardship as being excused by President Tinubu if the nation is run by a government that has the required vision and skills to harness and manage our economic potentials, national comparative advantage and expanded value chain that abound in our vast but dormant productive sector.

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“The expectation of Nigerians on a day like this was for a Presidential speech that will provide concrete solution to critical challenges of the nation including security as well as the crisis in the electricity and petroleum sectors.

“Indeed, any serious government with requisite capacity and vision will set a Marshall Plan on every critical sector which have capacity to galvanize and stimulate the economy through job creation.”

Ologunagba further said, “Our Party holds that the manifest non-preparedness and hasty implementation of ill-planned policies by the current APC administration triggered a catastrophic economic failure with unprecedented crippling effect on the productive sector and agonizing hardship on Nigerians.

“The ill-planned policies led to the closure and mass exodus of many multinational companies from our country, disabled millions of Small and Medium Enterprises and resulted to massive loss of jobs across the country.

“It is troubling that President Tinubu’s speech also had no clear-cut measures to revamp the critical sectors of manufacturing, agriculture, food production, transportation, healthcare, education and other pivotal sectors of life in the country.

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“The President’s speech articulated no solutions to the fall of the Naira from N187 to the US Dollar under the PDP to over N1000 under his watch; no answers to the alarming over 40% unemployment rate and the fact that Nigerians are now daily fleeing the country in droves.

“Furthermore, it is heartrending that the President’s speech had no words on the mindless killings, maiming, abductions and mass burial of citizens in various parts of the country under his watch. He had no reassuring words on the abduction of students in Zamfara State as well as other victims of such dastardly acts across the country.

“On the much-touted welfare package, the PDP asserts that there is nothing to cheer over such spiteful tokenism where, amidst unbearable costs, President Tinubu announced a miserable N25,000 per month for six months for average low-grade workers, while still being aspirational on his promise of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) buses.

“It is also certain, from antecedents, that the promised cash transfer programs to an additional 15 million vulnerable households, would be another conduit pipe to divert public fund to corrupt APC leaders.

“Our Party invites Nigerians to note that President Tinubu’s speech has left no one in doubt that the APC administration has no plans, capacity and competence to handle the crucial and urgent task of governance; which is clearly beyond its managerial faculty.”