Bankole Taiwo, Abeokuta
A frontline Presidential aspirant of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, on Saturday vowed to restore the unity of Nigeria if voted into power in 2023.
Atiku who lamented that, Nigeria has never been this divided before, declared that, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has shattered the hopes and aspirations of Nigerians.
The former Vice President stated this when he met with delegates of the PDP in Ogun state at the party secretariat in Abeokuta, the Ogun state capital.
In Atiku’s team are: a PDP chieftain, Raymond Dokpesi, Senator Dino Melaye and other party members.
Atiku noted that, Nigeria must be rescued form the APC – led administration who he said has led the country into failure, following poor economy, insecurity ethnic clashes.
He, however promised not fail Nigerians, saying APC has not been fair to all parts of this country.
“We have never witnessed the kind of disunity we have today in this country even during the civil war, Nigeria was not as divided as this and the reason for this disunity is because the APC government has not been fair to all parts of this country.
“I promise to unify this country. I promise to give a sense of belonging to every part of this country. We have done it before in 1999 when we came, there was a lot of disunity, but it was not as bad as this.
“But, the first thing we did was to make sure we formed a government of national unity and that gave us the calmness in the unity we needed to govern, as long as the country is not united, you cannot govern even in your own home, not to talk of a complex country like Nigeria which is multi-ethnic and multi-religious.
“I promise to give every part of this country a sense of belonging, that was why I said, I am going to restore unity. I also said, I am going to tackle insecurity because once you tackle insecurity, there will be peace and when there is peace you can now begin to implement your economic reforms which will create jobs, which will bring about development.
“I also said, I was also going to tackle the issue of decentralisation or rather devolution of powers to the state and the local governments”, Atiku said.
Atiku who took a swipe at a Presidential aspirant under the platform of APC and the governor of Ekiti state, Kayode Fayemi over his promise to devolve powers to the state and local governments during his declaration in Abuja, described Fayemi as an “hypocrite” who has crippled loca government administration in his state.
“Some few days ago, a governor declared to run for President and he was talking about local government autonomy and currently in his state, he is not giving that autonomy to the local government, so you can see the hypocrisy from some of our leaders.
The former Vice also vowed to vigorously pursue devolution of power to the state and local governments in line with the constitution.
He said, “Constitutionally we are going to initiate reforms which will give states and local governments more powers and more resources to deal with issues that are essentially states and local government issues.”