Buhari’s Rumoured Wedding Sign Of Poor Opposition, Presidency Blasts PDP

The Presidency on Sunday attacked the Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP) saying the party went missing and abdicating its
responsibility to the nation on recent national issues.

Garba Shehu, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on
Media and publicity said this in a statement on Sunday.

Garba pointed out that the opposition completely went missing
last week during the reintroduction of anti-sexual harassment
legislation in the Senate and 2020 Budget presentation by President
Muhammadu Buhari to the National Assembly.

He said that rather than concentrate on national issues, the PDP
was carried away by fake news of President Buhari’s rumoured
wedding to one of his ministers.

The missing of the opposition and failure to hold the government
to account, he said, was dereliction of duty.

He said, “Last week, the Nigeria’s senate majority leader
reintroduced anti-sexual harassment legislation to parliament,
following a serious exposé by the BBC of a sex for grades scandal
at the University of Lagos.

“The bill had been tabled before – in 2016 – but it was not
passed: some members of our party, working with the opposition,
then stronger in numbers than today, blocked it.

“This time around, there has been no such attempt by the
opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to scupper the
legislation. We cannot tell whether they remain opposed to it, for
they have been too busy to let the 200 million citizens of Nigeria
know. Instead, last week – whilst this matter was in the Senate,
and the first Federal Budget following our February General
Election, was being tabled before the House – the opposition’s full
attention was elsewhere: on the affairs of the President, who we
were told by the internet, was planning to marry in secret to one
of his cabinet ministers.”

According to him, the menace of fake news is not unique to
Nigeria

“The interminable nonsense of fake news is hardly unique to
Nigeria. In the United States, Britain – indeed across much of the
democratic world – we see waves of falsehoods and untruths peddled
across digital and mainstream media.

“It has led to journalists and the press to become less trusted
than almost any other profession or estate. Yet elsewhere, whether
the fake facts emanate from governments or oppositions, neither
have sought to abdicate their unique responsibilities in the act of
governance.”

Speaking further on the opposition, he said “In Nigeria, the
opposition is close to reneging completely on the compact it holds
with the voters. Every modern democracy exists for its checks and
balances. Voters may elect a government to govern but they also
elect an opposition – to oppose, to scrutinise, and to hold the
majority to account.

“In the absence of either weight or counterweight, the scales of
democracy become imbalanced. This cannot continue for long without
the full functioning of governance being affected.

“Whether citizens voted for President Buhari and the All
Progressives Congress (APC), or for the opposition’s presidential
candidate and his People’s Democratic Party (PDP), no one voted for
failure.