Opposition Parties on Monday have tackled President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for lacking empathy during his nationwide broadcast to Nigerians.

National Publicity Secretary of the Labour Party, Obiora Ifoh while responding to the President’s speech in Abuja, on Monday dismissed claims made by the president that decisions so far taken by his administration were in Nigeria’s best interest.

He said, “If anything, the speech conveyed to Nigerians the high level of hypocrisy, deceit and lack of empathy which has become the guiding principle of the All Progressives Congress administration which Tinubu leads.

“It is depressing to note that the President and his handlers didn’t deem it fit to include a word of comfort for the families of over 200 persons killed by terrorists during the Christmas Eve massacre in Plateau State.

“The President’s helplessness in the face of his glaring failure to address the critical issues of insecurity, decayed infrastructure, the collapse of the manufacturing and productive sectors, inflation and the Naira to Dollar exchange rate which is spiralling out of control is written all over the speech.

“There was no word about the alleged massive looting of the nation’s resources by appointees and party leaders in various sectors.

“Most disturbing for us is the President’s false claim that, ‘everything I have done in office, every decision I have taken and every trip I have undertaken outside the shores of our land, since I assumed office on 29 May 2023, have been done in the best interest of our country,’ what a despicable form of deceit.

“How does his ill-advised decision on fuel subsidy removal without a plan to ameliorate the suffering of Nigerians translate into an action taken in the national interest?

“Of what benefit were the millions of the nation’s dwindling foreign reserves frittered away under the guise of attending the climate change summit in Dubai to Nigerians?

“How do we begin to repair the damage being done to our democratic institutions such as the Judiciary, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC among others by the APC Administration?

“While we call for prayers for our nation in this critical point of our history, we will continue to call on the National Assembly to look beyond party lines and ensure that the spirit and the letter of our constitution is upheld at all times.”

Meanwhile, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has described the New Year nationwide address by President Bola Tinubu as a harvest of deceit, false claims and empty promises.

It also described the speech as unpresidential, uninspiring and amounts to a waste of valuable time. The opposition party said Tinubu did not address any of the critical issues plaguing the nation.

National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Debo Ologunagba said, “Nigerians were dismayed as the President deployed rhetoric and failed to address the critical issues.”

Ologunagba said, “The President failed to address critical issues of insecurity, decayed infrastructure, comatose manufacturing and productive sectors.”

They also added the “crushing 28 percent inflation rate, continuing plunge of the Naira, alarming unemployment, excruciating poverty and economic hardship occasioned by the reckless, ill-advised and insensitive policies and programmes of his administration.

“President Tinubu failed to address the vexatious issue of incompetence, insensitivity, massive profligacy, unbridled treasury-looting inherent in his administration, which have put our nation in dire straits.

“More distressing is that President Tinubu had no words in his New Year address for the Christmas eve genocidal massacre of over 200 Nigerians by terrorists in Plateau State.”

They also said he ignored “the murder of over 5,000 citizens in Plateau and other states of the federation under his watch since May 29, 2023.”

The PDP spokesman further said, “It is an unpardonable assault on the sensibility of Nigerians for President Tinubu to brazenly assert that ‘everything I have done in office, every decision I have taken and every trip I have undertaken outside the shores of our land, since I assumed office on 29 May 2023, have been done in the best interest of our country.’

“On the contrary, all decisions and actions of the Tinubu Presidency including the approval of increase in the pump price of fuel from N167 to over N700 per liter, devaluation of the naira with the consequential high costs and hardship; skewing of the 2024 budget in favour of luxury appetite of the Presidency and APC leaders without concrete policies to revive the economy and create jobs; the wasteful foreign trips with political cronies and failure to address the mindless killings across the nation cannot be said to be in the interest of our country.

“Furthermore, the undermining of the Constitution and institutions of democracy including attempts to emasculate the National Assembly and compromising of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, through the appointment of APC card-carrying members as Resident Electoral Commissioners, REC, cannot be in the interest of the nation.

“President Tinubu’s claims that his anti-people actions and policies, with their calamitous consequences are in the interest of the nation further confirms that this administration is deliberately subjecting Nigerians to hardship as a way to suppress them to surrender to totalitarianism.

“Also, in stating that ‘from the boardrooms at Broad Street in Lagos to the main streets of Kano and Nembe Creeks in Bayelsa, I hear the groans of Nigerians who work hard every day to provide for themselves and their families,’ President Tinubu has admitted that his administration has plunged Nigerians into pain, anguish and misery.

“President Tinubu ought to have used the opportunity presented by the New Year to apologise to Nigerians and marshal out steps to address our national challenges, including those responsible for the exiting of multinational manufacturing companies and other businesses from our country.

“What Nigerians demand of President Tinubu is to provide a comprehensive account of our nation’s earnings. This includes the proceeds from the removal of subsidy on petroleum products, especially in the face of allegations that the earnings are being diverted to private pockets of APC leaders and their cronies.

“The National Assembly is invited to step up and perform its constitutional role of oversight to hold the executive arm accountable as the custodian of the purse of the nation,” PDP said of Tinubu’s New Year address.