The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has charged the Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbeh, to immediately toe the path of honour and resign for portraying Nigeria as a lying nation.
The party said Ogbeh had brought Nigeria to international opprobrium by “deliberately falsifying claims relating to Nigeria’s relationship with Thailand.”
The party said the world was shocked when the ambassador of Thailand to Nigeria, Wattana Kuwongse, publicly denied ever informing Chief Ogbeh that major rice mills were shutting down in Thailand as a result of drop in importation of rice by Nigeria as claimed by the minister.
READ ALSO: Ekiti guber: Ojudu declares ambition, promises to rule sensibly
PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, in a statement on Friday, said the development had further dented the image of the nation.
The party said the minister had neither clarified his claims nor offered any explanation for the heavy embarrassment he had caused the nation, adding that such had placed a heavy moral burden on him and the federal government.
The PDP said it wondered why President Muhammadu Buhari, as Africa Union Anti-Corruption Champion, had not taken any action to redeem the image of the nation, after the development.
“It is clear that the intention of the APC-led Federal Government was to use the Minister of Agriculture to mislead Nigerians into believing that the Buhari-led administration has achieved national self-sufficiency in food production; a stunt which fell flat on its face and brought the nation into international ridicule.
“Nigerians will recall that the same minister, last year, programmed the exporting of rotten yams and brought the country into international disrepute, all in the desperate bid of APC’s interest to score cheap political points and push their ill-lucked 2019 re-election bid,” the party said.