PRESIDENTIAL candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, said on Monday in Lagos that 40 per cent of his government will be youth-populated, affirming that his Minister of Youth will be less than 30 years old, if elected into office, come 2019.
Atiku gave this promise at a Youth Town Hall Meeting organized by the party in Lagos, saying the gesture would be made because the youths were the future of this country and tomorrow’s leaders.
“40 per cent of my government will be youth. It is a promise. I will not break it. My Minister of youth will be less than 30 years.
“If you are less than 30 years, you can bring your CV. This is simply because the youth are the future of this country. We will build a good future for the country.
“We are here because of your future. I have four children but only one is working for the government while the rest are working for me in my various companies,” the PDP presidential hopeful said.
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Explaining how he intends to create jobs for the youths, the former vice-president said he would do this by lowering tax rates and industrial tariffs for the private sector as being practised in most industrialized countries.
“In most industrialized countries, it is the private sector that creates jobs. How do they do that? They lower the tax rate.
“If you issue lower tax rates to most companies, they will create jobs. These are the types of incentives you offer the private sector so that they will be able to create jobs.
“Lower industrial tariff rates, they will create the jobs for your country and the youth will be liberated. That is why I got a first class VP,” Atiku said.
“I know about creating jobs. Our President said the economy has ‘pafuka.’ Do you know that in this government, there is no economist? They don’t even know how to manage the economy. If the economy is good, we will all prosper. If the economy is bad, we all perish,” Abubakar said.
Speaking also, the party’s vice-president candidate, Dr Peter Obi, described the Federal Government’s Trader-moni programme as a vote-buying ploy, urging Nigerian youths not to vote for President Muhammadu Buhari again in 2019.
“They are giving market traders N10,000 for purpose of their business. I don’t know anywhere in the world that such exists.
“It is called vote-buying. If you go anywhere in the world, such is non-existent. The country is experiencing a lot of hardship every day and we continue this way.
“The president said he can no longer run the country because the economy is collapsing.
“Nigerian youths, I warn you not to vote Buhari again so that you won’t continue this suffering for another four years,” Obi said.
He assured that Atiku’s administration would invest in education as opposed to what the current administration was doing in that sector.
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“Your country today is not investing in education. The more educated a nation is, the better the country. Atiku’s government will invest in education,” he said.
The PDP National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus, said that President Buhari does not take responsibility for saying that the youths were lazy, and for being unaware that the country was under bondage, declaring that Nigerian youths were strong, energetic, innovative, industrious and hardworking.
“General Buhari does not take responsibility and that is why he said Nigerian youths are lazy.
“But I am here to say that you are strong, energetic, innovative, industrious and hardworking.
“As of now, Nigeria is under bondage because the cabals are the ones ruling. The president is unaware that people are being killed from Zamfara to Benue.
“The president is not aware that people are suffering. He is not aware that a bag of rice in 2015 is now N18,000,” Secondus said.
Secondus described Atiku as the president whose presence would be felt and also accessible, assuring that there would be no cabal.
“Atiku is the president you can touch, feel his presence, and communicate with. That is the reason why we are here. Is it the president that has to go to Poland before he can make a statement your kind of president.
“On Atiku’s presidency, you are the president and the youths will matter. There will be no cabal. What we have today is a college of presidents that we don’t know who is in charge,” he said.
In attendance were the DG, Atiku Campaign group, Otunba Gbenga Daniel; PDP Lagos gubernatorial candidate, Mr Jimi Agbaje and his running mate, among others.
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