Reactions have continued to trail the launching of policy documents by President Muhammadu Buhari , Presidential Candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC titled: “Next Level” and Atiku Abubakar, Presidential Candidate of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, titled: “Let’s Get Nigeria Working Again”.
In one of such reactions, former Deputy National Publicity Secretary of APC, Timi Frank described the ‘Next Level’ campaign phrase of Buhari/APC as a total fraud since the APC have no concrete and beneficial achievements on ground.
He observed that, “under the Buhari/APC’s administration, we have seen worst statistics of job losses, unemployment, economic stagnation, abject poverty, treasury looting, disobedience to court orders, intimidation of Judicial officers, dictatorship, selective anti-corruption fight, lies, intolerance, insincerity, outright tyranny, continuous breach of the Constitution, nepotism, cronyism and the use of security forces to intimidate the National Assembly and the poor citizens of this country.
“Their Change Agenda has failed. The #Next Level Agenda is fraudulent. The last three and a half years has proved they don’t have what it takes to chart a way forward for Nigeria. No man can give what he does not possess. They deceived Nigerians with Change Agenda, which turned out to be a change in personal fortune for themselves and their cronies.
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“Be that as it may, I urge Nigerians not to touch the unveiled Buhari/APC’s #Next Level with an electric pole. As far as I am concerned, this is a next level of fraud. A #Next Level in the empowerment of Boko Haram and militia herders to continue to kill, maim, torture, kidnap and destroy the property of Nigerians.
“This can only mean a #Next Level of vote allocation to the APC, disenfranchisement of Nigerians through vote buying, use of security forces to rig election in favour of Buhari/APC, intimidation of voters, harassment and illegal detention of opposition political leaders.
“This can only mean a #Next Level of diverting relief materials meant for suffering Internally Displaced Persons for their pecuniary gains. This can only mean a #Next Level of filling up key federal vacancies with candidates from one section of the country”, Frank stated.
As for the Atiku Abubakar, ‘Let’s Get Nigeria Working”, Festus Keyamo, Director of Strategic Communications, President Muhammadu Buhari Campaign Organization said his team would soon respond to the claims made by Atiku in his policy document.
Keyamo told Business Day that, “we shall soon give a comprehensive response to the so called policy document presentation by Atiku Abubakar, Presidential Candidate of the PDP “.
But speaking on a current affairs programme “Politics Today” on Channels Television on Sunday, Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, said the Next Level is “ a consolidation of the achievements of the Buhari administration” on infrastructure development, agriculture, security ,addressing the economy and fighting corruption.
Another public affairs analyst, Katch Ononuju, has described Atiku’s plan as realistic and realisable. Speaking to BusinessDay on Monday, Ononujo, who is also a PDP chieftain, said the Atiku’s ambitious plan to double the GDP to about $900 billion and lift 50 million people out of poverty in the next two years through massive investment in small scale businesses, is realisable. He stressed that when PDP was in power the party set up plans that allowed for economic growth.
He however, lamented that under the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) even with the launch of the Next Level, there are no actionable plan by government to force the economic growth, saying “you cannot talk about employment when there are no government action to force economic growth.”
He said that under the Buhari government of the APC, no single privatisation has occurred instead President Buhari is thinking about rolling back the gains of the PDP by trying to offload the economy from the hands of the private sector. “Don’t forget that we restructured the economy by simply offloading enterprises that were in the hands of the public to now be in the hands of the private sector, which gained economic growth for Nigeria.
“So we sustained that economic growth. Don’t forget we have only done a small approach to economic restructure. We have not yet done a proper political restructuring which Atiku said he will do through private presidential action. A lot of these things can be done through presidential order,” he said.
“PDP brought you MTN, Zenith Bank, brought you the privatisation that brought you the economy that became the biggest in Africa. We became home to the fastest growing middle class in Sub-saharan Africa. What the PDP is saying is that it will continue to force economic growth. We are not promising magic, all we are saying is that we shall continue to force economic growth.
“But today under Buhari we are in a depression. Buhari has no economic team and Buhari has no plans to allow economic resemblance of the political freedom,” he said.
Another politician, Perry Opara , who is also the national chairman of the National Unity Party (NUP) said the Atiku’s Plan is realisable adding that it is to going to yield small and medium scale industries in Nigeria, create an enabling environment for them and lift the bar in such a way that it will be easy to do business in Nigeria.
“It is also going to introduce tax cuts that will create a friendly business environment that will make small scale businesses attractive in Nigeria. And with reasonable infrastructure it will have multiplier effects and even wealth distribution. So 50 million is conservative in two years it will hit up 100 million.
President Buhari launched his policy document on Sunday while former Vice President on Monday launched “My Plan to get Nigeria Working Again” in a speech he delivered to the nation via multiple social media platforms, where he reeled out plans promising a total transformation of the country.
“If elected president, I will be pro-active in attracting investments and supporting the 50 million small and medium-scale enterprises across Nigeria for the purpose of doubling the size of our GDP to 900 billion by 2025. These investments will create a minimum of 2. 5 million jobs annually and lift at least 50 million people from poverty in the first 2 years,” Atiku said.
Innocent Odoh and James Kwen, Abuja
