Atiku: Why Nigeria is divided

Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar says Nigeria has been wallowing in disunity because the All Progressives Congress (APC) government has been unfair to all parts of the country.

He insisted that even during the civil war era Nigeria was not as disunited as being witnessed under President Muhammadu Buhari’s government.

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Atiku, a presidential aspirant of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), spoke on Saturday in Abeokuta, Ogun State, while addressing PDP delegates ahead of the presidential primaries.

The Waziri of Adamawa also submitted insecurity challenges have been threatening the peace of Nigeria.

According to him, as long as the country is not united, as long as there is no peace, you cannot govern even in your own home, not to talk of a complex country like Nigeria which is multi-ethnic and multi-religious.

He promised to unite Nigeria by giving every part a sense of belonging, tackle insecurity and implement his economic development blueprint towards transforming the country.

Atiku also reiterated his pledge on devolution of powers from the states and Local Government Areas

Atiku said, “We have never witnessed the kind of disunity we have today in this country, even during the civil war… and why do we have disunity? It is because the APC government has not been fair to all parts of this country.

“I promise to unify this country. I promise to give a sense of belonging to every part of this country. We have done it before in 1999 when we came on board, there was a lot of disunity but it was not as bad as this. But, the first thing we did was to make sure we form a government of national unity and that gave us the calmness in the unity we needed to govern.

“As long as the country is not united, as long as there is no peace you cannot govern it even in your home not to talk of a complex country like Nigeria which is multi ethnic and multi religious. So, I promise to give every part of this country a sense of belonging , that was why I said I was going to restore unity.

“Some few days ago, a governor declared to run for President and he was talking about local government autonomy and currently in his state, he is not giving that autonomy to the local government, so you can see the hypocrisy from some of our leaders that is why I said, constitutionally we are going to initiate reforms which will give states and local governments more powers and more resources to deal with issues that are essentially states and local government issues.

“If you vote for me, I promise I will not fail you and I will not fail Nigeria.”

In his remarks, a governorship aspirant in the state, Oladipopu Adebutu, also lamented insecurity, joblessness and what he called weaponisation of poverty by the political class.

He, however, said the main opposition party “is on a course to restore Nigeria and Ogun State to the winning ways.”

In Atiku’s team were a PDP chieftain, Raymond Dokpesi, Senator Dino Melaye, and other party members.