The Buhari Campaign Organisation,
BCO, has lambasted the policy plan of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP,
presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar.
BCO said the former Vice
President’s policy plan lacked remorse and was not people-friendly.
The Economy and Strategy Team of
BCO was reacting to Atiku’s presidential candidate’s speech in Sokoto where he
flagged off his 2019 campaign.
Abubakar had claimed that he will
run a people-friendly government.
Reacting, the group stressed that
his policy plan said otherwise when viewed in detail.
A statement signed by the group
said Abubakar’s policy document would “blow the ruling APC out of the water
because its ideas are already out there and because the candidate had amassed
enough resources to enable him employ pawns and foot soldiers that could run an
effective media blitz.”
The statement reads, “In the end,
it was a non-event. To use a colloquialism it was ‘a damp squib’. If one wants
to be kind, the best that can be said about the Atiku Policy Document is that
it was rushed out to create a policy platform to mask the real intentions which
is to regain power to continue business as usual.
“Let us be candid, it is a
wishy-washy, unimaginative and internally inconsistent document. In short it is
‘Disatikulated’.
“Given the relative although
unlikely chances of the PDP of becoming the official opposition in 2019, it is
important to quickly deconstruct its ideas and to do so by way of general
comments and some more specific comments.”
The group insisted that the
“document was not original and borrows liberally from other people’s policy
documents from within and outside Nigeria.”
BCO said, “As such, it is bland
and unimaginative and does not specify how the things it hopes to achieve can
be done in terms of resources and bureaucratic capacity of the country.
“It is alright to propose
implementing ‘pro-poor policies that will enhance their participation in
economic activities and improve household incomes’ Anyone can say that. The
issue is how? After all, we in the APC have shown what is possible with our
ground breaking Social Investment Programme.”
The group explained that one of
the most striking things about the Atiku Policy Document was that it was mostly
bereft of people-oriented policies.
“In its haste to pander to big
business, our blinkered friends in the PDP completely relegate the issues
around investing in the Nigerian people to talking about poverty alleviation.”
“Apart from showing ignorance
about the latest thinking around the positive impact that tackling
multi-dimensional poverty has on growth, for the Atiku people to be talking
about mere poverty alleviation shows that they are completely insensitive to
the needs of ordinary Nigerians.
“In case what we are saying is
not clear, let us put it in other words. Nobody in serious international
development discourse these days talks about poverty alleviation. The reversion
to poverty eradication later on in the document does not help their case. It
only underscores the sloppy preparation of the document.
“Another great drawback of the
Atiku Policy Document is that it pretends as if the past never happened. It
makes no atonement for past looting and misgovernance and goes on as if there
was nothing untoward in its past.
“How can Atiku Abubakar talk
about privatisation with a straight face? How can any PDP person fail to
explain why huge funds were voted year after year for projects with no results
to show? It is only here in Nigeria that a party boasts about projects it
started but ‘Did Not Finish (DNF)’ which is the result given to failed
athletes.
The group said it carried out a
thorough analysis of the Atiku document and that it talks about increasing debt
with a straight face.
“How about the huge debts left
for the incoming APC government that were hidden away? These include the $6.8bn
on unsettled JV cash calls or indeed the up to N2.2 trillion owed to States,
contractors, pensioners, exporters etc. that created a huge debt overhang in
the economy but were excluded from official debt figures? Even religions that
offer forgiveness do so on the basis of repentance for past misdeeds,” the
group said.
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