Atiku’s policy plan ‘bereft of people-oriented policies’

Buhari Campaign Organisation (BCO) says the policy plan of Atiku Abubakar, the Peoples Democratic Party presidential candidate, is not people-oriented.

The group said this while reacting to the presidential candidate’s speech in Sokoto where he flagged off his 2019 campaign.

Abubakar had claimed that he will run a people-friendly government but the group differed, saying his policy is otherwise when viewed in detail.

The group said it thought that Abubakar’s policy document would blow out the ruling APC but that Atiku did not live up to expectation.

“In the end, it was a non-event. To use a colloquialism it was ‘a damp squib’. If one wants to be kind, the best that can be said about the Atiku Policy Document is that it was rushed out to create a policy platform to mask the real intentions which is to regain power to continue business as usual,” the group said in a statement.

“Let us be candid, it is a wishy-washy, unimaginative and internally inconsistent document. In short it is ‘Disatikulated’.

“Given the relative although unlikely chances of the PDP becoming the official opposition in 2019, it is important to quickly deconstruct its ideas and to do so by way of general comments and some more specific comments.”

The group noted that the document is not original and borrows liberally from other people’s policy documents from within and outside Nigeria. “As such, it is bland and unimaginative and does not specify how the things it hopes to achieve can be done in terms of resources and bureaucratic capacity of the country.”

“It is alright to propose implementing ‘pro-poor policies that will enhance their participation in economic activities and improve household incomes’ Anyone can say that. The issue is how? After all, we in the APC have shown what is possible with our ground breaking Social Investment Programme.

“Apart from showing ignorance about the latest thinking around the positive impact that tackling multi-dimensional poverty has on growth, for the Atiku people to be talking about mere poverty alleviation shows that they are completely insensitive to the needs of ordinary Nigerians.”