The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has declared that Nigeria ‘will never fail’ as a nation despite the various challenges it is battling. It made the assertion on Thursday in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, to commemorate the nation’s 61st Independence anniversary.
“The PDP congratulates Nigerians on the nation’s 61st independence anniversary and urges them to use this year’s occasion to further consolidate on our unity and resilience for the task ahead,” it said. Although the party is optimistic about Nigeria’s future and unity, it slammed the Muhammadu Buhari administration and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), for the security challenges in the country among other things.
According to it, Nigeria is celebrating independence in the face of subverted elections, the crackdown on the opposition and dissenting voices, as well as other suppressive acts. It added, “Is it not also an irony that as we celebrate independence, thousands of our compatriots are falling victims to extra-judicial killings, arbitrary arrests, and illegal detention in dehumanising cells, which underscore the horrible situation under President Buhari and the APC, as even profiled by reputable international organisations, including Amnesty International (AI) and US Department of State?”.
While the PDP praised and defended its 16-year rule of the country (1999-2015), it ranked the current administration poorly in terms of governance in Nigeria. “The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has reviewed the 61 years of our nationhood and surmised that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led All Progressives Congress (APC) administration has gone down in history as the worst in the annals of our national life,” the statement said.
