THE ruling All Progressives Congress and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party have disagreed over whether or not this year’s Independence Day is worth celebrating.

While the APC is expressing confidence that the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) and the APC administration has given Nigerians a cause to cheer, the PDP disagrees.

Both parties however enjoined Nigerians not to despair but pray for the peace and unity of the nation.

The two political parties spoke in separate Independence Day messages to Nigerians on Thursday.

In a statement titled, “Nigeria’s 61 Years of Independence Provides Strong Source of Unity, Strength- Buni,” signed by his Director General, Press and Media Affairs, Mammam Mohammed, in Abuja, Buni said, “We may have some challenges but we still remain a united country with lots of hope to prosper and attain greatness as a united country.

“We should remember that every country including the developed nations have their challenges, ours should not be an exception to contest our existence as a country and provoke our growth and development.”

However, in a statement titled, “61st Anniversary: Nigeria Will Never Fail- PDP,” signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP said, it has “reviewed the 61 years of our nationhood and surmised that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led APC administration has gone down in history as the worst in the annals of our national life.

“Our party however asserts that though the APC and its government have been pushing the nation to the brink, Nigeria, as a nation, will never fail.

“How can we celebrate when the APC has plunged our nation into economic slavery with over N33.1 trillion accumulated debt, a 33 percent unemployment rate, collapse of productive sectors and a weakened naira from the N167 to a dollar handed over to President Buhari in 2015 to a dismal N576 to a dollar today?”