The Presidential Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku
Abubakar, has said President Muhammadu Buhari’s denial of the continued
threats of the Boko Haram insurgency has made the demand for mental test
for all presidential candidates imperative.
Atiku, in a
statement issued yesterday by his media adviser, Paul Ibe, also faulted
Buhari’s declaration at the Uyo All Progressives Congress, APC, rally
that he has fulfilled all his election promises.
He said: “The most blatant insult from the President was his assertion in Uyo that ‘we have defeated Boko Haram’.
‘’It
was most insensitive of the President to have said such on a day that
foreign and domestic media reported the entrapment of our gallant troops
by Boko Haram/ISWAP in Baga, with as much as 700 hundred reported
missing.
“Even more indicting is the statement from the US-based
International Strategic Studies Association, which revealed that the
Boko Haram insurgency was lingering due to the massive corruption around
President Muhammadu Buhari.
‘’How would those soldiers feel, how
would their families feel, how would their colleagues in the barracks
feel when they are facing a life and death situation and their
commander-in-chief is impervious to reality?
“Faced with such
delusions and obvious denial of reality by President Buhari, it has
become expedient to revisit the demand by the Coalition of United
Political Parties for all Presidential candidates to submit themselves
for a mental health test because clearly someone has badly lost touch
with happenings around him.
“We declare that Atiku Abubakar is
prepared to undergo such test and challenges President Muhammadu Buhari
to accept CUPP’s challenge.
“And, for the umpteenth time, we call
on President Muhammadu Buhari to come clean on the faceless people
behind Keystone Bank and Etisalat. Nigerians deserve to know how people
who used to beg for ¦ 2000 transport money, as revealed by Buhari’s
right hand man, Buba Galadima, are now suddenly wealthy enough to
acquire multi billion dollar investments.
“Finally, we cannot
wait for the Presidential Debate where Atiku Abubakar will talk about
his plans to reduce the unemployment rate from 23.1% under Buhari to
single digits, because Atiku means JOBS and Buhari means EXTREME
POVERTY.”
While speaking on President Buhari’s claim in Uyo that
he has fulfilled all his election promises, Atiku said: “Ironically, a
day before the President made that statement, it was revealed that the
number of Nigerians living in extreme poverty had increased from 87
million to 90 million in just 4 months. Going by that sharp rate of
increase, the whole country will be in extreme poverty if Nigerians make
the mistake of re-electing Buhari.
“Except the President made a
vow to impoverish Nigerians, it is hard to see how he could have
fulfilled his promises with such pervasive poverty and hunger in the
land.
“This is even as the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics revealed
a week to the President’s unfortunate statement that unemployment had
doubled from the 14% he met it in May 2015 to 23.1% in December of
2018.”
Leave a Reply