Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has promised to initiate economic reforms that would open up the country to foreign investors, if elected as President in the February 16, 2019 General Election.
Atiku, a presidential hopeful on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said he would use his experience in the private sector to restore the country to growth path if given the chance to govern.
Speaking at a presidential nominiation media in Abuja, he lamented that most of the gains recorded by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration under which he served Vice President and head of the economic team, have been eroded by successive administrations.
This, he attributed, to policy somersault.
According to him, the present administration of Muhammadu Buhari has failed to deliver its three cardinal campaign promises of fighting corruption, security and fixing the economy.
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“When we came in in 1999 a barrel of crude oil was less than 10 dollars in the market, we met less than 5 billion in our foreign reserve. With all that, we were still able to manage the economy of the country to the extent that we paid all our foreign debt and became debt free. reform policies. We were able to turn around the economy then, so I don’t think is an impossible task to do now. If we given the opportunity, I believe it is doable.
“I believe I have the experience and the capacity to deal with these issues more than any one of them,because I have dealt with them before. I assembled the best economic team with that we went well and everybody attested to what we have done in those 8 years. We liberalised the economy, we expanded the private sector’s participation and try to limit government to the necessary issues. If these policies we started were continued, today we will have been in a better country.
“So I believe we need somebody who can come and continue with these policies so that we can break back our prosperity, create more jobs for our unemployed youths. The most important thing is who can put this country back on the path of growth, I believe and I am so sure that am that person,” he said.
Thirteen presidential aspirants have indicated interest to contest the PDP presidential primaries billed for this weekend in Port Harcourt.
Those in the race are Abubakar; Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal; Gombe State Governor, Ibrahim Dankwabo; Senate President, Bukola Saraki; former Governor of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido; former Governor of Kaduna State, Ahmed Makarfi; and a former Special Duties Minister, Tanimu Turaki.
Others are a former Governor of Kano State, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso; another former Kano Governor, Ibrahim Shekarau; former Governor of Sokoto State, Attahiru Bafarawa; a former Plateau State Governor, Jonah Jang; an industrialist, Baba Datti Ahmed as well as Stanley Osifo.
The former Vice President attributed his several failed attempts to clinch the nation’s Number One job to what he called ‘conspiracy theory of the political elite’.
His words: “If you are not going to be used, if you are not going to satisfy their personal aspiration. Part of the problem they (elite) have with me, is that they say I am independent, principled and so on. Unfortunately the Nigeria public is not politically sophisticated to override the conspiracy of these political elite. They rely on the political elite to direct them”.
