A former Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Timi Frank, said on Friday President Muhammadu Buhari’s independence anniversary address was strewn with mistakes and false claims.
Frank, who is the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) Ambassador to East Africa and the Middle East, in a statement in Abuja, decried the rising insecurity and deplorable state of the nation’s economy.
He also accused the Buhari administration of nepotism, divisiveness and ethnic bigotry, saying the President attempted to pull wool over the faces of Nigerians in the address.
Frank said: “The country which had been on steady growth and development since 1960 through the spirited efforts of successive administrations, did not only stall since 2015 upon Buhari’s ascension to power but has continued to retrogress irretrievably in all measurable economic, social and political indices.
First, Buhari praised the Armed Forces for their gallantry in curtailing the murderous activities of Boko Haram insurgents, Fulani herdsmen, bandits and other criminal elements, yet, this is the same military that have failed to stop incessant attacks on their formations, killing of its personnel and kidnapping of its Generals across the country.
“The attack on the Nigerian Defence Academy, killing of two officers and kidnap of Major Christopher Datong is a case in point.
“The nation’s currency exchanged for about N180 to a dollar when Buhari took over power, but his administration created multiple foreign exchange rate windows. What is the exchange rate today? About N567 to a dollar at the parallel market and N410 at the official window!
What was the price of fuel, cooking gas and electricity tariff when Buhari assumed office in 2015 and how much are Nigerians paying for these essential commodities today?
“Nigeria was the fastest growing economy in Africa following the rebasing of the nation’s economy under President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration. Today, Nigeria is the Poverty Capital of the World. However, Buhari would want the world to believe that his regime has recorded appreciable economic revival in the country.
“Insurgency was largely confined to the North-East states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa when Buhari took over, but today farmers in Buhari’s home state of Katsina and North-West states of Kaduna, Zamfara, Sokoto, Kebbi, including Niger in the North-Central pay taxes to bandits to be allowed access to their farms.
Today most schools in the North-West states have been shut down while telecommunication networks have been switched off in Zamfara, Kaduna and Sokoto States as a result of the activities of rampaging bandits and insurgents who have taken to kidnapping innocent school children for ransom. Yet Buhari praises his administration’s efforts at curtailing insecurity. In Southern Kaduna, killing of innocent villagers has continued unabated.
“Today, Buhari and his administration have turned a once peaceful South-East region bubbling with commercial activities to another haven of insurgency and gruesome killings due to the cluelessness with which it handled legitimate protests and agitations by youths in that region.
“Unfortunately, Dr. Chike Akunyili who was husband to late Prof. Dora Akunyili recently fell victim to that heightened orgy of violence now ravaging the South- East.
No doubt that the wanton killing of innocent Igbo youths has now snowballed into undreamt of a killing spree by unknown gunmen. But to Buhari, all is well!”
