Phrank Shaibu, Special Assistant on Public Communications to the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, speaks with IMOLEAYO OYEDEYI on the campaign programme and chances of the former vice-president as the 2023 general election draws near.
How well is the campaign programme of your principal and former vice-president, Atiku Abubakar, going?
Our campaign has been very smooth, but for some internal party wrangling, which we see as a phase in the chain of events leading to former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar’ s ascendency to the nation’s highest office that has been well foretold. I belong to the Atiku’s campaign and at least six out of every 10 Nigerians I have spoken to told me that an Atiku presidency is a done deal and the current turbulence in the party is at best a bargaining trick by some persons to secure comfort zones in the impending Atiku administration.
Most Nigerians that we interacted with gave us two interesting reasons for their conclusion. One of the chief reasons they gave us is All Progressives Congress (APC)’s dismal performance in all sectors of the nation’s polity and particularly in the area of security and poverty currently ravaging the country. The second reason is the fact that the former vice-president is the only candidate that has got what it takes to turn around the fortunes of Nigeria, because of his antecedents.
From your words, you seem to be very confident and certain of getting victory in 2023 and over the last few months, same thing has also been observed among staunch supporters of the Atiku’s presidency bid. What do you think are the factors behind the growing confidence?
One of the factors is that the 2023 election is a complete departure from some of the political dynamics that shaped or influenced the results of the previous elections. For the first time since 2007, the presidential election will be an open contest with no incumbent on the ballot and, interestingly, when the people take stock of our lives under the APC in the last seven and a half years, the result is a clear retrogression from where we were before they came into power. One of their most embarrassing failures is the number of out-of-school children in Nigeria today.
The numbers rose monstrously, owing to insecurity and poverty in their seven and a half years reign. As of 2015, we had an already disturbing figure of 10.5 million out of school children. But a few months ago, UNESCO released a more recent update that placed the figures around 20.2 million, almost equaling the population of a country like Mali. You don’t expect Nigerians to vote for a repeat of the trauma, tears, hunger, blood and anger they have passed through.
But more importantly, with the disaster that the APC administration has turned out to be, it will be more catastrophic to have the party continue in office. But we are excited that they do not have a candidate in this election. They only have a man, who supplies comedians, skit-makers, meme-makers, and Tik-Tokers with contents. A self-writing joke! Isn’t it baffling that their candidate could not defend a manifesto he personally launched amid fanfare recently when he had a chance to do so in Chatham House? His action was like a final year student calling on his colleagues to come help him defend his project.
Rather than reveal how he will tackle insecurity, he called on Governor Nasir El-Rufai to answer the question on his behalf. For the sake of clarity, Kaduna State under El-Rufai recorded 1,192 civilian killings alone in 2021, almost levelled with that of war-torn Syria.
This is also a governor that admitted to paying killer insurgents to stop murdering his people. He hurriedly withdrew his children from school last year because of insecurity, but left the children of the masses to their fate. You see, governing Nigeria is not all about identifying surrogates who will man critical political offices for future political gains. Nigeria needs a debonair, cerebral, healthy, and a suave president, a man in the mould of AtikuAbubakar.
But considering the fact that your principal, AtikuAbubakar contested for same presidency in 2019 and lost, what do you think will make the 2023 presidential election turn out differently for him?
Let me correct an impression that Atiku lost in 2019. He didn’t! Nigerians voted for him, but he was denied ascendency. Anyway, that is a story for another day. The 2023 presidential election is not just the usual election, but an opportunity to correct the errors of the past administration and chart a brighter and more prosperous future and it is for the purpose of correcting this as well as departing from APC’s legacy of poverty that Atiku’s policy document code-named Unity-SEED was designed and released. It stands for Unity, Security, Economy, Education and Devolution of power to states and local governments, laying emphasis on promoting diversification and linkages between agriculture, industry and micro and small enterprises.
Atiku has everything it takes to fly Nigeria to El Dorado. After serving Nigeria for more than four decades, his impeccable record speaks volumes about his public spiritedness and his support for worthy causes. At an age when his mates prattled, Atiku had already reached the zenith of a distinguished career in the Nigeria Customs Service.
From being a Deputy Director at the then Department of Customs, Atiku has gone through the drudgery of grassroots politics to etch his name as the most influential vice-president the country has so far produced. The question remains, if he was not good, how has he been able to garner all these achievements that have turned the people’s adversity upside-down as pronounced by his record of service over the years? Like a quintessential colossus, he has dished out goodwill, service and altruism. These are undeniable and Nigerians should expect more.
Some schools of thought have claimed that the performance of the APC administration in the last seven years will be the major factor that will compel Nigerians to consider your party in 2023 and not just only your policy document; how true is this?
The ruling party has driven millions of Nigerians deeper into poverty since 2015 and spent trillions of naira procuring hunger, darkness and insecurity. The country is facing arguably its worst crisis since the civil war. Unemployment is at 33 per cent; at least 133 million Nigerians live in abject poverty. The exchange rate even at the official market is at an all-time low; debt is at an all-time high, while oil revenue has dried up, according to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Nigeria cannot risk another failed Presidency. Nigerians do not need any egghead in economics to inform them that the present government has been leading them on a path of deceit and that, which it sadly preaches to be change by every reasonable imagination or reality, is now an economic catastrophe that has impoverished Nigerians, introduced hunger and anger that has culminated in various forms of avoidable violent agitations in many sections of the country.
Otherwise, common sense is sufficient to suggest that any country with people that repeat the error of electing rulers that have capacity to thrust their nation into huge economic mess, as depicted in the last seven and a half years, should also be ready to face the consequences that usually confront failed states. Indeed, any democratic nation that fails to adhere to wise counsel should also be prepared to confront the likely anarchy and lawlessness that come with citizens’ revolt in times of economic hardship. Under a government like that of today’s Nigeria will never change for good.
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This is really why Nigerians must rethink their choice of the APC and its candidate by seeking a viable, active, cosmopolitan replacement with someone who can independently assess and access information, not just on a pragmatic and functional need to know basis, but indeed on what would work best for a nation in dire need of credible restructuring. This is where AtikuAbubakar fits in well and is by far the best and right man for this time in Nigeria. The comfort for Nigerians is that all hopes are not lost, as the era of leadership with information manipulation, deceit and no vision seems over, especially with the emergence of AlhajiAbubakarAtiku as the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Certainly, Atiku’s precedence in successful business management and fair-play will ensure that a formidable opposition that has the capacity to change the story of Nigerians from hopelessness to prosperity is a new option for Nigeria.
But with the level of influence that the Obi-Datti movement are pulling in the country, aren’t you seeing them affecting your party’s chances in 2023?
I wish Peter Obi well, but what I know for a fact is that, we will accommodate everyone who has something to offer in Atiku’s Government of National Unity once elected.
Above all, what edge do you think your candidate has over other candidates?
The PDP is coming handy bearing in mind that the party is now committed to getting the APC out of power and arresting the dehumanisation of the Nigerian people through unbridled corruption, impunity, insensitivity and arrogance of its leaders. The APC as currently constituted is so disdainful of the intelligence of the Nigerian people that its leaders believe that the party would continue to rule in spite of its dismal performance whether Nigerians like it or not.
All said, the ball is in the court of the Nigerian voter who would be the judge in this matter. The electorate will go the polls in 2023 to judge which of the parties can take Nigeria to the Promised Land. But it is important to state that well-meaning Nigerians will not succumb to the propaganda that ushered in the accidental presidential mandate that the APC currently enjoys. The clueless APC is beatable, and Atiku, by his humility, democratic credentials and his belief in wide consultations which has endeared him to a majority of Nigerians, will send APC packing.
and then