A United States of America-based Professor of Medicine in Georgia, Prof. Emeka Umerah, has said that based on facts and his antecedents of performance, only the former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, among other presidential candidates, can address the economic and security challenges befalling Nigeria.
Prof. Umerah said but for the intervention of Atiku, Nigeria would have eventually returned to the era of the dark days of military dictatorship and tyrannical rule.
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Delivering a keynote address at the public declaration of support for the presidential candidate of the PDP by the Diamond Ladies in Politics, held Saturday in Abuja, Emerah paid glowing tribute to Atiku Abubakar over the role he played in the truncation of the alleged third term agenda of former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2007.
Reminiscing the successful role played by Atiku to revamp the economy when President Obasanjo held sway, he said it behoves the electorates to elect him to address the economic and worsening security challenges in the country.
He thereby enjoined aggrieved stalwarts of the PDP to put their differences aside and work in concert to ensure the defeat of the APC at the presidential poll.
According to him: “It is now audible to the deaf and visible to the blind, the growing spate of insecurity in Nigeria. Our security challenges have now grown beyond the hitherto known activities of dissident Boko Haram terrorists. It is now, as a matter of fact, hydra-headed- banditry, kidnapping, farmer-herder clashes, livestock rustling, separatist agitations, and religious-related killings among others.
“These have threatened the country’s farming belt and now worsening the food insecurity problem that we have been plagued with especially over the past six years.
“Research has shown the fiscal effects of insecurity on the Nigerian economy. Economic analysts and available research have blamed the escalating level of insecurity for the loss of over N1.4 billion to N1.6 billion in business and commercial assets between 2015 and 2018. Daily oil production which has remained the mainstay of our economy has also declined from 2.2 million to 1.5 million barrels per day in 2018.
“The literal interpretation of all of these is that it has resulted in low government revenue generation. That is why some of the Governors are threatening that they may not pay salaries if the trend continues.
“On the part of the direct masses who always bear the brunt, rising poverty, inequality, and inadequacy of employment opportunities, particularly among the youths are at the centre of Nigeria’s insecurity problem.
“Economic pundits have therefore observed that increased insecurity in Nigeria has coincided with rising poverty levels, with an estimated 83 million people which is nearly 40% of the total population, living in extreme poverty (less than $2 per day) as at April 2022. This is a whopping 18% increase from 70 million people recorded in 2016.”
He said Atiku believes that those caught in acts of criminality should not be pampered but crushed so as to set worthy examples and also serve as a deterrent.
The Chairman of Paschal Oluchukwu Foundation, Ambassador Pascal Oluchchukwu, who was decorated as the Grand Patron of the Diamond Ladies in Politics, urged Nigerians to believe in the former Vice President, adding that the Waziri Adamawa mean well for the Nation.
He said Atiku is the only Presidential candidate with the experience to end all forms of insecurity in the country.
