Nigerians have been implored to maximize the opportunity provided by Saturday’s Presidential election to vote in the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.
He was said to be the only candidate between the two front-runners that understands entrepreneurship and purposeful leadership.
The plea was made at a one-day summit of the South East Zone of the Atiku Immutable Mandate (AIM) Group in Enugu.
Addressing the delegates, drawn from all the five States that make up the South East Zone, AIM Group’s South-East Zonal Leader Mazi Omife I. Omife noted that the main objective of the summit is to further enlighten voters on the need to vote for Atiku whom he described as “a tried and tested performer” who will ensure a better life for all Nigerians.
Omife contended that the present Buhari government has not only made Nigeria the poverty capital of the world but that “Studies have shown that Nigerians are worse off today than they were four years ago”. He stated that “Nigeria’s GDP per capita has contracted every year since 2015 when it peaked at $2, 693 per head. In 2016, it fell to $2, 171 and $1, 828 in 2017”. Quoting the Brookings Institution, he regretted that “about 8, 000 citizens are falling into extreme poverty on a daily basis”.
Alluding to the data from the World Bank and Renaissance Capital, Omife noted “With 87 million Nigerians living below the $1.90 poverty baseline, almost one out every two nationals (44 percent) lives in extreme poverty. Incidentally, India, which is second in the poverty scale, has 57 million people that are extremely poor, representing just 4.4 percent of its 1.3 billion population”.
He lamented that “access to capital by entrepreneurs remains a problem asonly 23 percent of businesses can get needed financing” hence the nation’s economy is in dire strait. He therefore urged Nigerians to ensure that electing Atiku Abubakar as the next President of Nigeria turns around the present deplorable situation that has occasioned a very precarious socio-economic situation in the country.
Packaged by Alice Egbedele
