TICAD 7: No Nation Wants to Do Business with Buhari, Says PDP

Chuks Okocha in Abuja

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday described the visit of President Muhammadu Buhari to Japan as a disgraceful outing, adding that it was evidential of the poor attention given to President Buhari by world leaders and investors at the seventh Tokyo International Conference on Africa Development (TICAD)

This, the party said, has further confirmed the rejection of Buhari’s government 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 the conference has shown that no world leader or international investors “want to do any real business with Nigeria under President Buhari, mainly because of the legitimacy burden of his presidency, arising from the 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 country 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 neighbouring Ivory Coast with a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) 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 is 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 (FDI), is now descending into a pariah and beggarly country with no hope in sight.

This development, PDP said plainly showed that the time is gone when world leaders and investors embraced manipulated elections and governments that do not have the mandate of their citizens.

The PDP said it stands with majority of Nigerians in holding that the only way to save the country from imminent collapse is the retrieval of the presidential mandate at the court, adding: “That is the only way our country can enjoy the benefit of an acceptable and purposeful leadership, which will return it to the path of peaceful co-existence, political stability and economic prosperity.”