Atiku Abubakar
A Civil Society Organization, the New Agenda for Positive Change,
has taken a swipe at the presidential candidate of the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, for holding a strategy session
with over 400 members of his team in Dubai, UAE, SaharaReporters reports.
The Dubai meeting had in attendance, Atiku’s running mate, Peter Obi; the Senate President, Bukola Saraki.
Also in the meeting were ex-Ogun Governor, Gbenga Daniel; ex-aide
to former President, Reno Omokri, Bayelsa East Senator, Ben Bruce among
several others.
Reacting, however, the group said the development was a sad
reminder of Atiku’s extravagant lifestyle, elitist mindset to
governance, which his years out of government Nigerians had not forget.
Raymond Clarke Amuna, President of the group, said the development
was an indication to his dangerous tendency to hand Nigeria over to
foreign interests, with Dubai being his latest preference.
Amuna in the statement on Friday challenged the PDP candidate to
explain to Nigerians how he intends to run a domestic-oriented economy
for the masses with the kind of lavish lifestyle of taking his strategy
team with over 400 members to Dubai.
He warned that a vote for Atiku would definitely signal a return to
the era where even bottled water is imported into the country and
Nigerians will again be conditioned to believe that only things that are
foreign are good.
“Each time Atiku Abubakar considers slinking to Dubai, he
should be mindful of how the opulence of the desert city warps his sense
of proprietary. He has never returned from his Dubai trips lucid enough
to accept the reality in Nigeria possibly because his guilty conscience
pricks him to know that the PDP could have done better for Nigeria in
its 16 years of misrule.
“There are various exotic venues in Nigeria that he could have
used and have members of his team spend money to boost the local economy
but he decided to expend his N20 million annual income in ferrying
Peter Obi, Secondus and other clowns in his circus to Dubai for the
strategy session.
“It is therefore not surprising that his team issued the
statement castigating the government for planning to use the proceeds of
privatization to fund the national budget.
“The first thing of note is that Atiku Abubakar, a onetime Vice
President (1999 to 2007) and by default the Chairman of the National
Economic Council (NEC) at the time, was the originator of privatization
or in layman’s term selling government owned enterprises, businesses and
assets.
“It was under him that the chant of 'government has no business
in business' or 'government is incapable of managing businesses' first
gained ground and has remained a part of our collective psyche today.
“Secondly, Atiku Abubakar spoke from experience. He is not sure
that the national assets in question would be allocated to him and his
cronies as it was done under his watch when he held sway over the
privatization of most of the country’s assets.
“He is therefore definitely waiting until such a time when he
is certain that he can acquire the same assets for pittance. His media
organization ranted on about how the assets to be sold were built by the
PDP without being able to list a single one of them, which implies that
the PDP candidate is claiming what he did not achieve.
“Furthermore, the PDP presidential candidate is unmindful of
the reality that the proceeds will be managed differently from the 16
years that his party was in power. It is publicly known that even the
small money for which national assets were sold under his watch ended up
in individual’s pockets”.
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