Spokesperson of the Atiku
Campaign Organisation, Segun Sowunmi, and Minister of Transportation, Rotimi
Amaechi, have clashed over the privatisation programme of the Peoples
Democratic Party, PDP, when Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was president and Atiku his
vice.
Amaechi and Sowunmi clashed at
the first 2019 presidential debate hosted by The Osasu Show and held at NAF
Conference Centre and Suites, in Abuja.
Sowunmi represented the 2019 PDP
presidential candidate, Atiku, while Amaechi was in the audience.
President Muhammadu Buhari of the
All Progressives Congress, APC, was not represented at the debate, which had
other presidential candidates in attendance.
A former minister of Sports,
Bolaji Abdullahi, President of the Market Women Association of Nigeria, Mrs
Felicia Sani; Chairman, DAAR Communications PLC, Raymond Dokpesi (jnr), the
convener’s mother, who is also former First Lady of Edo State, Mrs Eki
Igbinedion; were also present at the debate, among others.
The theme of the symposium was
‘Nigeria Rising! It’s Time: Establishing Social Accountability between the
Electorate and Leaders.’
Sowunmi said during the
administration of Obasanjo, privatisation was embraced.
Sowunmi also said the action was
taken in order to move the country in a direction of sustainable growth.
He added, “We were able to
privatise some key sectors which expanded their ability to create jobs,
expanded their ability to be sustainable and they were able to bring business
discipline into the running of government.”
According to him, the totality of
the past antecedents of Atiku, “together with the fact that he was in the civil
service, being a former vice president, a consummate author and is interested
in restructuring, there is no better candidate to govern the country now than
Abubakar.”
Amaechi, who was not on the
debate panel, raised up his hands to ask questions.
The former Rivers Governor said
the privatisation carried out by the PDP was not for the benefit of the public.
Amaechi claimed that the Obasanjo
and Atiku presidency led a privatisation of Nigeria’s assets to their cronies.
“The first question is that they
privatised, to who? Who did they privatise to? To themselves, and they are
coming back. Then I was a young man, I didn’t have money to buy.
“Question number two, let me
thank the woman who said power had improved. Under them, with $16 billion, we
had 3,000 megawatts of power, now we have 7,000.
“Three, and finally, on railways,
we all go to Kaduna. We are talking about railway, who has the railway? Our
government right?” Amaechi asked.
In response, Sowunmi added, “An
eight-year governor of a state in PDP comes to public space, riding on the
alleged integrity of just president Muhammadu Buhari, and speaking trash to the
people, what exactly is this?
“Now, we had assumed we had
signed up to an issue-based campaign and, we just want to beg the operators of
this present government to stick to the issues.
“We speak about opening up the
economy to make sure that those who have the competencies to drive growth must
be given the enabling environment to create value, and our people can plug in.”
Also speaking, the presidential
candidate of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria, ACPN, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili,
said, “Our country needs to be rescued. I don’t want to be president of Nigeria
because there is an office to occupy. I really want to lead a process of
rescuing our country from the precipice in which it finds itself.”
The former Minister added that,
“when one looks at the fact that the situation of things in the country are not
going to get any better because the nation is trapped in bad economic policies,
which means that the nation won’t grow as much as it needed to, then, rescuing
the nation is a must.”
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