“The 2019 election is not about Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and President Muhammadu Buhari, but about the survival of Nigeria,” the Vice Presidential Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Obi, said at the weekend. He spoke with the press at Amichi, Anambra State, shortly after the dedication of the new Secretariat and the School of Nursing of the Amichi Anglican Diocese.
Obi said that the present government at the centre has shown great incapacity for governance that has manifested in all the vices plaguing the country and should not be allowed to continue.
He cited examples of the insecurity in different parts of the country such as Borno and Zamfara, home states of the Chief of Army Staff and Chief of Defence Staff, respectively, and even Katsina State, the home of President Buhari.
On the economy, the former Anambra State Governor regretted that “Nigeria cannot be said to have any economic base at the moment when Nigerian youths in their productive ages have been rendered unproductive due to lack of vision, planning and effective implementation.” He said it is unfortunate that under Buhari’s APC government, Nigeria has become the poverty capital of the world.
Obi frowned at a situation where a quarter of Nigeria’s 2019 budget is devoted to servicing debt, a situation which he said portends grave danger for the country.
He, however, expressed optimism that with the detribalised and hardworking Atiku as President, Nigeria would be made to start working again.