Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and former Vice President of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar has restated his commitment to ensuring that necessary constitutional amendments that will cause a transfer of more powers and resources to other tiers of government is activated on his first day in office, if elected president in next year’s election.
This is as he also gave the assurance that the crisis in the PDP would be resolved amicably.
Atiku made the remarks on Wednesday during an interactive session with members of the Nigerian Guild of Editors in Lagos.
The PDP presidential flag bearer said it was unfortunate that a section of the media chose to misinterpret his comments at a session with the Lagos Business School Alumni Association on Tuesday.
“It is rather unfortunate that a section of the media reported my remarks at an event yesterday which casts doubts on my readiness to implement my restructuring agenda.
“Let me therefore use the opportunity of this gathering today with the gate keepers of the Nigerian media to say that my restructuring agenda is intact and it will be implemented from my first day in office.
“Already, I have received report from a team of constitutional law experts which I assembled to look into our constitution and highlight areas where there are items that can be moved to the concurrent and residual lists of the constitution.
“Let me tell you that I will start work on the implementation of that report from my very first day in office if I am elected president next year,” Atiku said.
The former vice president, while responding to questions from editors said that his administration would work closely with the private sector towards ensuring that the gaps in infrastructure deficits were closed.
“The private sector is pivotal to my agenda to rejuvenate the economy and close our infrastructure deficit gaps. If I am elected president, I will work closely with the private sector by giving them incentives to create more jobs and also grant them tax holidays in order for them to intervene in our infrastructure development.
“It is obvious to all that government doesn’t have all the money and the debt burden has continued to weigh us down. Therefore, government has to be creative and engaging the private sector is one way of solving our infrastructure problems in a sustainable way,” Atiku said.
Speaking on the crisis in the PDP, Atiku said: “I believe we are going to reconcile. It is a family issue, we are talking to ourselves and we will resolve our family issues.”
Atiku spoke on his plan to unite the country.
According to him, his would be a government of national unity as all interests would be represented.
“We need to restore the unity of our country and give each and every part of this country a sense of belonging in our federation,” he said.
He also promised to improve the economy of the country, creating a conducive environment for businesses to flourish.
