Coronavirus: PDP Blames Presidency For Negligence

By Kasali Akinwale

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, says that the President Muhammadu Buhari administration has failed to be alive to  its duties of protecting the lives of Nigerians.

The party made the allegation in the wake of the confirmation that an Italian has imported the Coronavirus into Nigeria.

The 44-year old Italian is presently in isolation at the Lagos State isolation centre where he is being treated, and is allegedly doing well.

In a statement by the PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, the party berated the Buhari Presidency for its negligence and laidback attitude, stressing that “a responsive and proactive government would have mobilized effective surveillance and screening measures to ward off the menace.”

Ologbodiyan noted that the welfare of Nigerians should be a priority, but regretted that no concrete steps were taken to edge the country against the virus, leading to the current scary situation.

“The PDP notes that a responsive and proactive government would have mobilized effective surveillance and screening measures to ward off the menace, particularly at our entry points, but the incompetent, insensitive and indifferent Buhari administration, was more interested in propaganda and unnecessary show-boating with false performance claims.

“Nigerians should directly hold the Buhari Presidency responsible should any national calamity arise from COVID-19 in addition to the economic and security challenges its negligence had caused our nation.”

The PDP also added that Nigerians are already facing series of challenges bothering on fear of insurgents, bandits, kidnappers, and now coronavirus.

“The PDP, therefore, calls on Nigerians not to despair but stir up the Nigerian resilient spirit for an urgent, multi-sectoral concerted effort by agencies, groups, corporate entities, and public-spirited individuals to immediately curb the disease before it spreads, particularly given the prevalent security, economic and humanitarian challenges in the country.

“The party calls on the Federal Government to end its cosmetic attitude and immediately adopt the proactive strategy used by the PDP administration which promptly contained the Ebola Virus disease in 2014,” the statement reads.