It’s Too Risky To Hand Over Nigeria To Tinubu Or Obi, Atiku Says

 

Atiku Abubakar, the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) presidential candidate, stated yesterday that it would be too risky for Nigerians to trust Bola Tinubu, the APC’s presidential candidate, or Peter Obi, the LP’s presidential candidate, with their futures in the upcoming election.

The general election of 2023 will be a test of how well the APC-led administration has performed, according to former Senate President Dr. Bukola Saraki, who also added that Nigerians would not reward failure.

Festus Keyamo, the spokesman for the APC Presidential Campaign Council, disagreed with Saraki and asserted that the incumbent party was well-positioned to prevail in the upcoming elections.

Speaking at the Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG) Presidential Dialogue on the Economy in Lagos yesterday, Atiku said he has a good understanding of the challenges bedeviling Nigeria.

Analysts have narrowed the race to Atiku, Tinubu and Obi.

The former vice president described Obi as a greenhorn and alleged that the APC-led government brought Nigerians to “this sorry situation.”

Atiku said:-

“Experience is important and we must avoid the mistakes of the recent past. It is too risky for Nigerians to hand over their future to a greenhorn or to the national leader of the very party that brought us to this sorry situation.

“This is election season. So, you will see and hear from snake-oil salespeople, false prophets and purveyors of false hope and misleading statistics. There is, therefore, the need for caution.

“We must also remember that we cannot trust the doctor that poisoned and continues to poison the patient to be the one who provides the curative treatment. The stakes are too high; so, we must get it right. This may well be our last chance to do so.

Obi wins, he would find it difficult to deliver on his mandate because his party would also lack majority seats in the parliament.

Saraki said:-

“First, I strongly believe that the 2023 election is a referendum on the performance of the APC government and party and I believe that a country like ours, a very progressive country with a lot of progressive individuals – would never reward failure.

“The question that Nigerians must ask is: Has this government and party failed or done well in the last seven years plus?

“And let’s take the indices one by one because I want to stay on issues and move away from sentiments. In 2015, their promise to Nigerians was that we would fight insecurity, we would improve the economy, we would create jobs for the youths – those were the major issues.”

Speaking further, he said, “In 2015 if you can remember very clearly, issues of insecurity were limited to the North-east. Since then, till today, we’ve seen insecurity in the North-west – farmers cannot go to their farms, people are being killed and kidnapped; we’ve seen herdsmen and farmers clash in the North-central and we’ve seen the highest level of oil theft in the South-south – and we’ve seen kidnapping. So, on the issue of security, they have not performed, they have failed.

“Let’s take the economy, and again, I will take them one by one and I will challenge you because you are know these issues; let’s take inflation – the inflation level today is about 16 per cent, which was never like this in the time of PDP in the single digit. You have the highest number of Nigerians below the poverty line at 133 million; it was not like that. Unemployment under PDP was about six per cent to seven per cent; today it is 33 per cent, and youth unemployment is about 40 per cent. Foreign Direct Investment if we are lucky may be just about $2 billion compared to $8 billion to $9 billion.

“These are facts we cannot run away from; on the economy as well, the exchange rate was N200, the official rate was probably N195 and the parallel market N230 – today official about N450 and the black market N735. It’s never been like this. And these are facts.”

According to him, “When you take all these issues, they have failed and as they’ve failed as a political party, we cannot reward failure. So, I don’t even think that the race should be about APC; they’ve had an opportunity to make Nigerians’ lives better but they have not.

“The question now goes as you’ve all asked – who next? Some would say oh, do we want to go back to PDP? Let’s talk about that back to PDP- the PDP days.

“The PDP days, as I said, we had insecurity limited to just one part of the country. In the PDP days we are talking about, we had GDP growth of about six per cent to 7 per cent. Now, we are seeing GDP growth of about 2 per cent, less than the population growth.”

He said:-

“In the PDP days we talked about, we had Foreign Direct Investment into this country – about $8 billion – and the largest economy in Africa. These were the PDP days, the exchange rate was not N700 inching to N1000 at a time, these were the PDP days.

“PDP days, the country was more united but now it is no more; now, it is normal in democratic settings that the populace has a choice especially when you get tired of a party and you say oh, I want to try another party. But when the party has failed, you come back to what they call the good days and that is what PDP offers under Atiku Abubakar.

“When you talk about other parties – with great respect to them – to the individuals, particularly, Peter. But don’t forget again that what we run in Nigeria, we run a presidential system. When you go to that ballot box on election day, you are voting for the party.

“Now, a party where from day one, you don’t have candidates in all the parliamentarian seats; so, already from day one, there’s a recipe for disaster because you know that the executives and legislature are not going to have a majority. And a lot of people when you ask them what is their concern, they tell you about restructuring. These are things that need constitutional review. These are things that you also need to have a majority in the National Assembly.”

Saraki, among other things, said, “Investors are no longer satisfied with Executive Orders. They want to see legislation to support investment. So, if as a small party, you don’t have a spread; we’ve seen our experience in 2015 – let’s move away from internship to reality and practicality.

He said:-

“Now, that takes me back to Atiku Abubakar. In Atiku Abubakar, you have a candidate that is ready from day one to run. The experience he has is even at the federal level.”

APC in Pole Position to Win the Forthcoming Elections, Says Keyamo

While also responding on ARISE NEWS Channel, Keyamo said the APC was in pole position to win the forthcoming elections.

Though Keyamo admitted that Obi had made a significant impact in the North-west, he argued that it would be an advantage to the APC, because the LP presidential candidate has been able to appeal to the Christians going by his campaign techniques so far and he would be taking a chunk of votes from the PDP.

In the North-west, Keyamo explained that the defection of the former Governor of Kano State, Rabiu Kwankwaso to the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) would affect the electoral fortune of the PDP, while the ruling party would maintain its strong hold on the region.

In the North-east, Keyamo recalled that in 2019 elections, Atiku had no one to contend with – either presidential or vice presidential candidates, yet he lost four of the six states, adding with Kashim Shettima, the vice presidential candidates of the party from the region, that would pose another problem for the PDP.

He said while the APC might not win the South-east and South-South, the South-west was for the ruling party to lose.

He concluded that ruling party would win the presidential election.

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