…Says he has enough experience to address security challenges
The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, has asked his fellow Northerners to vote for him in the 2023 general elections.
The former vice-president made the remarks while responding to a question posed to him by the spokesman of the Northern Elders Forum, (NEF), Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, during an interactive session with the Arewa Joint Committee, which was held at the Arewa House yesterday, in Kaduna.
Atiku, while appealing to Nigerians to be given the opportunity to bring his wealth of experience to bear and provide good governance for the country, said Northerners need to vote for him rather than a Yoruba or Igbo candidate because he was a pan-Nigerian with a northern extraction that had built bridges across the country. The presidential candidates of the African Action Congress (AAC), Omoyele Sowore, and that of the All Progressives Congress, (APC), Bola Tinubu, are from the South-West region, while the Labour Party’s Peter Obi is from the South-East region.
The Presidential hopeful, who assured that if elected president he will develop Nigeria and build a dynamic economy for prosperity, also promised to restore Nigeria’s unity and strengthen the security apparatus. He further lamented, in this presentation, that Northern Nigeria’s current social and economic challenges called for sober reflection, adding that as a country we must build consensus with a prosperity restoration with strong comment and initiatives.
The former vice-president also said he knew every part of the country and if elected as Nigerian president in 2023, he would form a government of national unity. “I have traversed the whole of this country, I know the whole of the country, I have built bridges across the country”, he stated, adding that it would be a mirage building economic prosperity in the country without unity and national security.
The interactive session was organised by the Arewa Joint Committee made up of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF); Northern Elders Forum (NEF); Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation (SABMF), Jam’iyyar Matan Arewa (JMA); Arewa House (Centre for Historical Development and Research), and Arewa Research and Documentation Project (ARDP) in Kaduna.
