The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, on Saturday, charged Nigerians to hold the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Presidency and the All Progressives Congress, APC, responsible for the negative impacts of the travel sanctions imposed on the country by the United States, U.S.
PDP described the sanction as another huge misfortune brought by the Buhari Presidency and the APC, which have continued to wreck on Nigeria with its compromised handling of security issues, in addition to escalated bloodletting and human rights violation under their watch.
DAILY POST had reported that the US President, Donald Trump, had imposed a visa ban on Nigeria and five other countries.
Trump had signed the proclamation on Friday and its expected to take effect on February 22.
However, a statement by PDP’s spokesperson, Kola Ologbondiyan said 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 Nigeria’s economy.
According to PDP: “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.
“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.”
The party also recounted that just recently, Nigeria was rated the third country with the highest level of terrorism in the world.
“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 issues under the APC.”
The opposition party maintained that the APC-led federal government has failed to ensure security in the country and rejig the country’s Security Chiefs.
“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 party said.
PDP also restated that such failures by the APC had continued to bolster insurgents, bandits and kidnappers to continue to launch deadly attacks on Nigerians.
“Moreover, the APC have 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, urge the National Assembly not to relent in its efforts to take decisive action on security, as the travel ban is a wake-up call on our leaders and all critical stakeholders to address the issues at stake.
“We, however, called on the United States to ensure that the ban does not hurt innocent Nigerians who are also bearing the brunt of the poor handling of security in our country under the APC administration,” the statement added.
