The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Sunday said that the visit of President Muhammadu Buhari to Japan was a disgraceful outing and that this was evident in the poor attention given to the President by world leaders and investors at the 7th Tokyo International Conference on Africa Development.
This, the party said, has further confirmed the rejection by the international community.
The party in a statement by the National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, also described as a national embarrassment and shame that President Buhari could not seal any meaningful economic agreement at the conference but only came home with an empty basket and pocket full of promissory notes.
The PDP said that the conference had shown that no world leader or international investor wanted to do any real business with Nigeria under President Buhari, mainly because of the legitimacy burden of his Presidency, arising from the alleged rigging of the February 23 Presidential election, as well as overt impunity, corruption, treasury looting and recklessness that pervade his administration.
According to the statement, “It is lamentable that while President Buhari and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), are reducing our nation by celebrating a mere pledge of $300,000 (N108 million) from the Japanese Prime Minister and a promissory note for 50 million euros from an EU Commissioner, his Ghanaian counterpart, Nana Akufo-Ado, had sealed a deal with automobile giant, Toyota, to immediately establish a Toyota and Suzuki manufacturing plant in Ghana with a determined timeline of August 2020 for production.
“The multinational had also signed a deal to establish a similar plant in neighboring Ivory Coast with a Memorandum of Understanding to that effect already signed last Thursday.
“It is instructive to note that Toyota announced that it preferred to cite the plant in Ghana because of the favourable economic climate prevailing in the country; a climate, which has taken flight from Nigeria under President Buhari and worsened since the rigging of the Presidential election”.
The party explained that it was saddening that because of President Buhari, Nigeria which, under the PDP had excelled to become one of the world’s fastest growing economies and a hub for Foreign Direct Investments, is now descending into a pariah and beggarly nation with no hope in sight.
This development, PDP said, plainly showed that the time when world leaders and investors embraced manipulated elections and governments that did not have the mandate of their citizens had gone.
The PDP said that it stands with majority of Nigerians in holding that the only way to save the nation from imminent collapse is the retrieval of the Presidential mandate at the court, adding. “That is the only way our nation can enjoy the benefit of an acceptable and purposeful leadership, which will return her to the path of peaceful co-existence, political stability and economic prosperity”.
