…Says Nigerians Have the Right to Protest
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has blasted president Bola Tinubu presidency and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) politicizing economy hardship in the country.
The PDP while reacting to a statement earlier issued by APC regarding the protests in Minna and Kano against the current economic hardship, said the action of the ruling party in threatening Nigerians for exercising their democratic and constitutional right to protest in the face of misrule.
Recall that APC had alleged that opposition parties have resorted to instigating unsuspecting young people to protests in the streets of some major cities as part of desperation to portray the ruling party as underperforming.
However, the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP Debo Ologunagba, in a statement issued Tuesday said the action of the APC in threatening Nigerians for exercising their democratic and constitutional right to protest in the face of misrule, agonising poverty, hunger, killings and other harrowing experiences showed that the APC was insensitive and relishes the life-discounting situation in the country.
The party said this approach by the APC, instead of listening to the people, was not only offensive but akin to pushing Nigerians to the wall and daring them to do their worst.
Ologunagba noted: “It is an assault on the sensibility of the people that rather than providing answers to how the Tinubu-led APC government in a space of nine months, turned the nation’s economy upside down leading to terrifying food scarcity and catastrophic high cost of living, the APC is seeking to label and clamp down on the suffering masses.
“The APC is insensitive to the fact that because of its policies more than 104 million citizens have sunk deeper into poverty; Nigerians can no longer afford their daily meals with families now going to bed on empty stomach as poverty rate soars to over 46 per cent.
“Any government that has an idea of macro-economic policy management ought to have recognised that the suffocating policies of abrupt increase in the pump price of petroleum products, high cost of electricity and arbitrary floating of the Naira as executed by the Tinubu administration without due considerations, would have excruciating consequences to the economy as being witnessed today.”
The PDP said these thoughtless policies by President Tinubu and the APC are responsible for the crippling of the productive sector with 28 per cent inflation rate, crashing of the Naira from N167 to over N1,500 to a Dollar, closure of millions of businesses and mass exodus of international companies from Nigeria resulting to a distressing 41 per cent unemployment rate and unbearable pressure on millions of families across the country.
