By KEMI KASUMU
Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s Presidential Candidate, Mr. Tunde Olusunle, has said that his principal, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar will reset Nigeria once elected on Saturday as Nigeria’s next President.
Speaking in an interview with This Day’s Chuks Okocha, he revealed that making Nigeria great again is one of the things Nigerians stand to benefit in event Atiku is elected.
“I can assure you that Nigerians can expect, and duly be served a listening, accessible, caring and performing Atiku Abubakar dispensation. That a PDP government under Atiku will be responsive, responsible and proactive, is given. While the ticket of one of Atiku’s major contenders in this contest has told adherents of a particular faith that their sensitivities and sensibilities don’t count, Atiku has always, and continuously, respected our religious plurality.
“On every occasion he got the ticket of a party to contest, he ensured immediate and instantaneous regard for Christians. From Ben Obi, who was once his running mate, to Peter Obi, to Ifeanyi Okowa, Atiku has always been spontaneously circumspect and pragmatic. We can expect an Atiku government that will speedily reset, reorder and reorganise our fractured and discombobulated polity.
“One of the popular slogans on the Atiku political train, is that he will unify Nigeria. All of a sudden, under the APC government, Nigerians began to think of themselves along ethnic and religious lines. This is not how we have always been.
“But when a president constitutes a federal cabinet of 42 ministers and appropriates 10 topmost portfolios to his own geopolitical zone, nepotism cannot have a better name.
“Or how do you describe it when the ministers of finance, defence, police affairs, agriculture, justice, water resources, disaster management and humanitarian services, aviation, even petroleum which has the president as substantive minister, are from one zone?
“When you run through the list of members of the National Security Council, (NSC) and you find 80 percent, if not 90 percent of the constituents from a particular section of the country and of a particular faith, nothing can be more upsetting. Atiku served in an Obasanjo government where the inauguration of the National Security Council had to be delayed for a few days, to ensure that the south east geopolitical zone was duly accommodated in the scheme in 1999,” he said.
On how swiftly Atiku’s administration will impact on Nigerians if elected on Saturday, he said “Speedily and with every alacrity.”
He added that, “Atiku is more than adequately prepared. He has always been a multitasking leader. You sometimes wonder how he is able to pack so much into his chest. Atiku has always been ready for governance, ever armed with a blueprint to guide his work. This blueprint has been regularly fine-tuned to reflect emerging socio-political realities, locally and globally.
“The world is not static. The telephone device which you and I are holding in our hands today, has experienced phenomenal upgrading since the Obasanjo/Atiku government, enabled the GSM technology over 20 years ago. That is the manner of dynamism that underlines Atiku’s mindset. There is always a “situation room” situation around him, of dialogues and disputation, and you find in him a man who has tremendous respect for scholarship and intellectualism, but is not shy of robust engagement. And Nigeria has a potential president who reads voraciously.”
