PDP Charges States To Take Ownership Of COVID-19 Response, Says FG Has Failed

The Poeples Democratic Party has urged states in the country to head the call by the National Coordinator of the Presidential Taskforce on COVID-19, Sani Aliyu, and take ownership of the response to the Coronavirus pandemic.

The PDP said Aliyu’s statement was an acceptance of the failure of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration to offer effective response to the pandemic.

According to a statement issued on Friday by the PDP Spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, the party knocked the current administration for allegedly settling for “a parochial response marred by corruption, nepotism, incompetence and narrow-minded politics, only to now turn to seek to transfer the brunt of its colossal failure to state governors.

“The Buhari Presidency seeking to transfer the brunt of its failures to articulate and coordinate an effective national response on COVID-19 pandemic on state governors, is an unpardonable manifestation of leadership failure.”

The party the decision to run to state governors for solution after “it had badly muddled up the process, leading to confusion across the country and consequential spike in infection and fatality rates, is rather coming very late in the day.”

The statement further hit the Buhari presidency, saying, it’s “poor handling of the COVID-19 response has further highlighted the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led Federal Government’s lack of capacity to manage important national issues.”

A part of the statement reads :”Our party invites Nigerians to note that the three states, where the Buhari-led Federal Government took up the management of the COVID-19 pandemic, namely; Abuja, Lagos and Ogun states, had recorded very high statistics in infection and fatality rates compared to states where it was not involved.

“This shows that had President Buhari involved the states and allowed for a multilayered, people-based approach in the distribution of palliatives, development of therapeutics and implementation of protocols, the situation would have been better handled.”

The party called on governors of the PDP to “assist” their colleagues in the APC with information, strategies and expertise for effective national response for the pandemic.

The main opposition party also charged the president and the PTF to do the nation a favour by taking “accommodation in the backseat and allowing competent hands to manage the situation.”

“Our party urges the state governors to brace up to the occasion and rally the private sector for homegrown solutions, which the APC-led Federal Government had failed to achieve due to sheer incompetence and corruption.

“The PDP therefore charges the Buhari Presidency to immediately give detailed account of all funds and other resources it claimed to have spent, particularly on palliatives; a scheme that have been exposed to be a huge scam,” it concluded.