By Ishaya Ibrahim
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Saturday told Nigerians to hold the Buhari Presidency and the All Progressives Congress (APC) responsible for the negative impacts of the proposed travel sanctions imposed on Nigeria
by the United States.
The PDP described the sanction as yet another huge misfortune brought by the Buhari Presidency and the APC on Nigerians.
The opposition party said both President Buhari and the APC “have continued to wreck our
nation with its compromised handling of security issues, in addition to escalated bloodletting and human rights violation under their watch.”
The party lamented that the travel ban will have grave consequences on economic, educational, and healthcare opportunities; hurt family and
social ties as well as further put pressure on national economy.
“More depressing is that the APC and the Buhari Presidency have been reversing diplomatic gains achieved by previous administrations while
gradually pitching our nation against other countries of the world with its poor record on security, corruption and human right issues,” PDP said in the statement by its national publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan.
“Our party is worried that our nation that, has become a global destination and investment hub under the PDP, is now being pushed back
to a pariah status under the incompetent and divisive APC, as reports from other members of the international community, including credible
international organizations, have continued to raise concerns on
security and human right issues under the Buhari administration.
“Only recently, our nation was rated as third country with the highest level of terrorism in 2019 after Iran and Afghanistan, in the Global
Terrorism Index rating by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP).
“This is in addition to damning reports by reputable organizations including Amnesty International (AI), Transparency International (TI), European Union (EU), United States Department of State among others, which in various independent reports, raised grave issues of escalated corruption, violation of human rights, disregard to rule of law, abuse of processes, election rigging and poor handling of security issue under the APC
“The APC administration has failed to rejig its security high command despite the calls by Nigerians, in the face of worsening security
challenges and mass killings in our country under their charge.
“It is also worrisome that the APC-led administration had failed to take
a decisive step to apprehend and prosecute perpetrators of acts of terrorism including the mass killings in Benue, Nasarawa, Bauchi,
Taraba, Kogi, Adamawa, Borno, Yobe, Zamfara, Kaduna, Ekiti, Kogi and other parts of the country under the current administration.”
The PDP said such failures by the APC bolsters
insurgents, bandits and kidnappers to continue to launch deadly attacks
on Nigerians.
“Moreover, the APC has failed to account for hoodlums and political
mercenaries it imported from neighboring countries to assist in
unleashing violence on Nigerians during the heavily rigged 2019 general
elections.
The PDP therefore urgd the National Assembly not to relent in its
efforts to take decisive action on security, insisting that the travel ban was a
wake-up call on Nigerian leaders and all critical stakeholders to address the
issues at stake.
The party however called on the United States to ensure that the ban
does not hurt innocent Nigerians who they argue are also bearing the brunt of the
poor handling of security in the country under the APC administration.
