A South-East Advocacy Group has enjoined Nigerians to vote for Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, as their next President to usher in new dawn for a better Nigeria.
Already, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has rescheduled the presidential election for February 23, this year.
Making the call at the continuation of the South East Zone Advocacy and Stakeholders meeting on “Voting Right,” Mazi Omife I. Omife, South-East Zonal Leader of the Atiku Immutable Mandate (AIM) Group in Awka, Anambra State, explained that the main objective of the group is to persuade people to vote for Atiku and how best to thumb print the ballot paper to ensure that their votes really count.
Omife lamented that President Muhammadu Buhari government has rendered Nigeria the poverty capital of the world as published by the World Bank and Renaissance Capital recently.
According to him, “Studies have shown that Nigerians are worse off today than they were four years ago. 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.”
Relying on the data from the World Bank, Omife stated “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 as only 23 percent of businesses can get needed financing” hence the nation’s economy is in dire strait.
The leader, therefore, urged Nigerians to elect Atiku as their president who will turn around the present deplorable situation that has occasioned a precarious socio-economic situation in the country.
Omife reiterated the 10 reasons advanced by Atiku Nigerians should vote for him to include “The first is that Atiku will build and empower the youth. The second is that Atiku will create jobs. The third is that Atiku will not discriminate.
“The fourth is that he will respect the Rule of Law. The fifth Nigerians should vote Atiku is that he will revamp education at basic and higher levels. The sixth Atiku will lift 50 million people out of extreme poverty. The seventh is that he will rapidly develop infrastructure.
“The eight is that he will ensure resource control. The ninth is that Atiku will make power work and the tenth reason while Nigerians should vote for Atiku is because he will protect Nigerians,” he added.
