Emmanuel Thomas, Lagos
September 28, 2015 – The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) today lambasted President Muhammadu Buhari over his delay in appointing his ministers, noting that the President never wanted to ministers but intended to run a monocracy.
The PDP also described the President of showing strong aversion to the ministers he is yet to appoint, having described them as nothing but noise makers.
Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Chief Olisa Metuh made the allegations at a press conference in Abuja.
According to PDP, elements around the President are exhibiting hazardous signs such as executive arrogance, flagrant abuse of power, constitutional violations, assault on democratic institutions, compromising of judicial processes, invasion of state government and personal houses, harassment of citizens and the deliberate suffocation of the middle class.
“This has resulted in the government conveying dictatorial inclinations as amply exhibited in its adamant stance in running a government without the statutory component of an executive cabinet, even when the negative consequences of this strange totalitarian approach are taking serious toll on the polity.
“Also, the stance goes a long way to show that the flip-flopped promise of our President to name a cabinet, a deadline which he shifted from two weeks of assumption of office to end of September, is actually a reluctant pledge and done under great duress.
“From his hesitancy and comments, it is deducible that President Buhari never intended to appoint ministers but rather prefers to run a monocracy and evidently does not value or respect those he would nominate as ministers.
“Otherwise, how can anyone repackage the mindset of the President when he, in an interview with France 24 Television in France, stated categorically that his preference is to rule without a cabinet and denigrated ministers as ‘noise makers,’ and of no importance or value in the running of an administration?”, the PDP queried.
It noted that given this worrisome outlook, it is obvious that the Presidency would not attach any value or importance to the ministers under the ‘new sheriff.’
“Could this also be part of the reason for the relentless onslaught against the National Assembly, which must be weakened and prevented from playing its constitutional role of checks and balances in the system?”, the PDP queried.
The PDP also queried the sincerity of the President in bringing the radical Islamic sect, Boko Haram to its knees.
The party noted that as Nigerians await the ministers already discredited by the person appointing them, it called on the administration to quickly gauge the mood of the nation and move fast to stem the sliding tide in virtually all segments of our national life by ensuring that it takes the national interest more seriously and curtail its show of impunity, abuse of power and the tampering of the independence of the judiciary as being celebrated by the APC in claiming manipulation of the various elections tribunals in the land.
“We therefore use this medium to draw the attention of the Chief Justice of Nigeria to various complaints by PDP members regarding the application of undue technicalities to deny them justice in elections tribunals and relevant courts.
“The special case in point is the manipulation of the processes in the governorship elections tribunals in Plateau and Imo states, where APC stole our mandates and is now applying all manner of tactics to arm-twist the judiciary and manipulate the proceedings by wounding down the clock, thereby preventing the hearing of the merit of PDP cases in those states until the expiration of the stipulated 180 days.
“Our complaints derives from the fact that the APC is already boasting of being in control of the judiciary as a tool to take over states won by the PDP in the general elections especially, Akwa-Ibom, Rivers, Taraba, Delta as well as Imo and Plateau states”, the party said.
