Atiku, Obi, Kwankwaso renew pledges at Arise TV, CDD townhall

Frontline presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP); Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP), and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), yesterday renewed the pledges to electorates if elected into office.

The trio spoke Sunday night as the other top candidates attended a presidential townhall organised by the Arise TV, Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) and others.

The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Ahmed Tinubu, was absent from the event. The Tinubu campaign team had said the former Lagos governor would not attend the town hall on the grounds that he was not consulted before fixing the date.

Speaking at the debate, Atiku explained that the private sector should be supported to build world class hospitals to guide against medical tourism. 

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“I will unify this country. This country has never been so divided as today. I will provide security and restructure the country because there has been consistent agitation to restructure this country.

“We will reduce areas of wastage in government spending.  We will continue with the policies we had started. We were to remove the subsidy. We will continue with the privatisation of refineries,” he said. 

Similarly, Obi said he would form a government of national unity that would bring out the best in terms of competence and character. 

He said, “We have a huge number of people living in poverty and we have to pull them out. We will move the country from consumption to productivity level. We will tackle the issue of oil theft, and deal with subsidies in the area of waivers.

“We will cut unacceptable costs of governance that we have today. We will invest in human capital for people to grow. We will increase our investment in the healthcare sector.”

On his part, Kwankwaso said, “We will do whatever it takes to provide quality education for the people.  We will introduce some policies that will improve healthcare service delivery through the NHIS. We will make healthcare accessible to every Nigerian.

“Our policy will be to train as many Nigerians as possible. We will encourage Nigerians and train them so that they can graduate and work in our Nigerian market.”

Meanwhile, the Atiku/Okowa Presidential Campaign Organization has mocked Tinubu on his trip to the Chatham House in the United Kingdom saying that the voters he needed to address were not in Chatham but waiting for him here in Nigeria.

In the same vein, the PDP National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, said the media has the obligation to ensure that those who aspire to public offices make themselves available for the Nigerian people to examine, review and interrogate their policies and programmes for the nation.