The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar has reiterated his position to privatise several capital projects in a bid to take the financial burden off the Federal Government.
Atiku said this on Wednesday during a meeting with the Nigerian Guild of Editors in Lagos State.
“If you see the amount of work the government has to do in this country, like building and rebuilding our ports, constructing our railway lines, building our highways – let me borrow Dokpesi’s word – it is a ‘humongous’ amount of money that you require. You know that the government doesn’t have it,” he said.
“I would rather concession most of this to the private sector and give them tax breaks. They invest, recover their money and we will have development, progress, jobs, and prosperity.”
Speaking on his 2023 manifesto, the PDP candidate said one way he could unify the country was by giving every part a sense of belonging, which according to him is lacking in the present administration.
“The unity of our country has been threatened. Number one, we need to restore the unity of our country and give each and every part of this country a sense of belonging in our federation.
“From unity, I moved to the issue of insecurity. We need to secure our country first. There is no geopolitical zone in this country that has no security or insecurity challenge.
“Thirdly, I moved to the issue of the economy. It’s only when you have a united country when you have peace that you begin to think about the economy and the economy is such a vast area – youth unemployment, inflation, so many things under the economy,” he said.
Atiku expressed his support for restructuring which he said he has championed for some time. According to him, PDP will form a government of national unity that includes members of the opposition.
“Anybody who has followed my political career will know that I had started advocating for restructuring since we were in office, when it was very unpopular, particularly in my own constituency in the northern part of this country.
“I still went ahead because it is something that I believe will bring more unity to this country and give every part of this country the opportunity to develop at its pace and with its own resources.
“Then I moved on to the issue of education because it is too dear to my mind. I believe in education; it is so important in all our human endeavour. All these things we are talking about, we will not be able to achieve them without education. Basically, education should be number one,” Atiku added.
