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Nigeria’s former VP to vie for presidency in 2019

Sunday July 22 2018
Atiku

Former Nigerian Vice-President Atiku Abubakar. FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

By MOHAMMED MOMOH

Former Nigerian vice-president Atiku Abubakar has formally declared his intention to contest the 2019 presidency.

Mr Abubakar said he would contest the presidential election to address insecurity, fix the economy and unite the country in a way the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) had failed to do in the last three years.

"The APC government only succeeded in dividing the people and destroyed the economy more than ever before,’’ he said at a rally held in Yola in North East Adamawa, his home state on Sunday.

The 71-yesar-old Abubakar returned to his former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) earlier in the year, dumping President Muhammadu Buhari’s APC.

People killed

He accused the national government of creating an atmosphere of insecurity and alarming unemployment rates.

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“In 1999, I took Adamawa State to Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Today, I have returned to reclaim what rightly belongs to the party. The government of APC has failed in uniting Nigeria and has destroyed our economy.

“Today, we are divided more than ever before in the history of Nigeria. Today we are witnessing most insecure atmosphere since our existence as a country.

“More people have died in Nigeria during the reign of APC than the number of people killed in Afghanistan. We have more than 10 million unemployed youths.”

The former vice-president urged PDP supporters to embrace the party for success in the 2019 General Election.

buhari

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari. FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

PDP national chairman Uche Secondus also spoke at the rally, assuring the people that the party would accord a level playing ground to all.

Mr Secondus, who received some defecting members of other political parties, said Nigeria was going through typical pains of bad economy and increasing rate of killings.

Earlier, Adamawa PDP chairman Tahir Shehu, pleaded with the national delegates to produce a presidential candidate from the northeast.

He said unfulfilled promises of APC made the people to look for Mr Abubakar who was a credible candidate for the presidency.

Mr Abubakar served as the second elected vice-president of Nigeria from 1999 to 2007, with President Olusegun Obasanjo.

He ran for the office of governor in the Gongola State (now Adamawa and Taraba States) in 1991, and for the presidency in 1993.

Extensive operations

In 1998, he was elected Governor of Adamawa State, and while still in office, he was selected by the PDP presidential candidate, Mr Obasanjo, as his running mate.

Mr Abubakar's second term as vice-president was marked by a stormy relationship with President Obasanjo.

His bid to succeed Obasanjo did not receive the latter's support, and it took the Supreme Court to allow Mr Abubakar contest after he was initially disqualified by the Independent National Electoral Commission on the grounds that he had been indicted for financial misconduct by an investigating panel set up at President Obasanjo's behest.

He ran on the platform of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), having quit the PDP, but ended up third after Mr Umaru Yar'Adua and Mr Muhammadu Buhari of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP).

Mr Abubakar is a co-founder of Intels, an oil servicing business with extensive operations in Nigeria and abroad.

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