Buhari’s ‘Next Level’ Campaign Vague on Policy, Big on Promises, Says Atiku

Buhari’s ‘Next Level’ Campaign Vague on Policy, Big on Promises, Says Atiku

By Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja

The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has described the ‘next level’ campaign initiated Sunday by the Buhari campaign organisation as vague on policy and big on promises.

The former vice-president noted that without a concrete policy, these ‘next level’ promises are nothing more than next level propaganda, stressing that the time for propaganda has gone and Nigerians are now interested in proper agenda.

Atiku, in a statement on Sunday by his campaign organisation, said: “Reading through the presentation, we note that it is very vague on policy and very big on promises. Promises are cheap.

“Anyone can make promises and indeed, President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) did make quite a number of promises which they either denied or did not fulfil, such as the promise to create three million jobs per annum and to equalise the value of the naira with the dollar.”

Atiku stressed that policies are the plans and roadmaps that would be used to achieve those promises, saying that promises made without policies are like a house without a foundation, they will fall. “And we have seen proof of that in Nigeria in the last three years.”

He added: “In fact, the feedback we have received from Nigerians is one of alarm. Over the last three and a half years of the Buhari administration, Nigeria was officially named as the world headquarters for extreme poverty. Nigerians are asking if this administration is planning ‘next level’ poverty for them?

“Under this government, 11 million Nigerians have lost their jobs and the administration is so panicky that it has refused to fund the National Bureau of Statistics to release the latest unemployment numbers. Nigerians are asking if this administration is planning ‘next level’ unemployment for them?

“Under Buhari, the value of the naira has been so devalued that Bloomberg rated the naira as the worst performing currency on earth. The nation wants to know if this government plans ‘next level’ devaluation of the naira for them?”

The former vice-president said in 2018, Transparency International announced that Nigeria made her worst ever retrogression in the Corruption Perception Index moving 12 steps backwards from 136 under PDP to 144 under Buhari.

“Nigerians are asking if this administration is planning ‘next level’ corruption for them? If the state of the average Nigerian has not improved in the last three and a half years, more of the same is obviously not what they need.”

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