Atiku Unveils 2019 Plans To CAN

The Christian Asso­ciation of Nigeria (CAN) on Monday night in Abuja commended former Vice President of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar for being the first presiden­tial candidate to honour its invitation for an interac­tive session on his plans for governance if he wins the 2019 Presidential election.

“You have made his­tory today by being the first presidential candidate to honour our invitation and we do not take it for grant­ed,” Bishop Stephen Adeg­bite, the Methodist Bishop of Ikeja Diocese and CAN Director of Mobilization and National Issues, told Atiku.

Atiku, presidential can­didate of the PDP in the 2019 Presidential election, was at the Ecumenical Centre in Abuja on Mon­day night for a two-hour interactive session with members of CAN who wanted to know how he would govern Nigeria if he wins the 2019 Presi­dential election.

Adegbite also observed that Atiku, who up for the two hours duration the programme lasted and convincingly addressed all the fears, issues and con­cerns raised by members of CAN, is an indication of his physical fitness.

Issues discussed dur­ing the session included how an Atiku government will improve power sup­ply, increase the number of women and youth in governance, whether he was under any influence by foreign concerns to do their bidding, how the challenge of high mater­nal mortality rate will be addressed, how to grow the economy, put a check on insecurity and how he would stop nepotism in governance.

On power supply, Atiku said, he would adopt the “captive power strategy” where specific power sta­tions would provide pow­er supply for specific areas adding that the strategy would ensure availability of power supply across the country within his first two years in office. He said that a study has revealed that the adoption of cap­tive power stations will yield greater results than reliance on gas to gener­ate power. He also said that there were companies willing to provide power at affordable rate using the captive power strategy.

On growing insecurity in the country, he said that the incident would be stemmed by provid­ing jobs for the teeming youths who were idle and willing to be used as in­struments of destruction.

According to him, in­stead of the present ad­ministration providing three million jobs yearly as it promised, a total of 11 million jobs have been lost since the President Muhammadu Buhari came into office in 2015.

He listed the retool­ing of the nation’s armed forces for better per­formance among other strategies that have been pencilled down as means of improving the effective security network of the nation.

On how to revive the economy, he said that he would create the right environment that would attract foreign and local investors who ran away from the country due to harsh economic and in­vestment climate.

Atiku observed that the private sector and not government should be the highest employer of la­bour and the main engine of economic growth.

He noted that Nigeria slipped into recession because of capital flight and attendant closure of companies in the country following government’s pronouncements which sent the wrong signals to investors.

SOURCE