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From left: Director-General, ADP presidential campaign, Irelu Kemi Elebute-Halle, the party’s presidential candidate, Engineer Yabagi Yusuf Sani, National Organising Secretary, Dr. Alexus Maiyanga and Deputy National Women Leader at the media briefing
By Anthony Maliki
The presidential candidate of the Action Democratic Party (ADP), Engineer Yabagi Yusuf Sani has taken the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari to the cleaners saying Nigeria has now become an absurdity.
He also took a swipe on the All Progressives Party (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) describing them as possessing negative tendencies that has plunged the country into penury.
Engineer Sani made the remarks on Saturday in Abuja while addressing journalists in his new year message to the nation.
The new year message was titled “2023, Another opportunity to take back our country.”
The presidential candidate noted that under the APC and PDP, nepotism, cronyism and similar primordial divisive sentiments became articles of faith and cardinal policy of governance.
He said these negative and dangerous tendencies have unfortunately been elevated to a frightening height by the APC government that has been in power since 2015.
Engineer Sani said the PDP and the contraption known as APC are squarely and pointedly to blame for the unprecedented calamity that has befallen the country between 1999 and now.
“Rather than mitigating the endemic corruption, the elected representatives in all arms of government engaged in brazen and unabashed kleptomania, looting and defoliating our common patrimony,” he said.
He pointed out the ADP presents an alternative to Nigeria under whom the nation’s economic outlook is going to be a remarkable departure from the preceding harrowing experience of inept and corrupt leadership which is a consequence of a faulty recruitment process and criminal circumvention of the rule of law and the electoral process.
According to him, to usher in the new dawn, all hands must be on deck, a patriotic and historical endeavor to which all citizens must be committed to.
On the economy, he said it is a paradox that Nigeria is rated as the global capital of poverty and as one of the three leading centers of insecurity in the comity of nations.
Besides, Engineer Sani said a survey by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) shows that 133 million Nigerians are poor multidimensionally explaining that what else could be responsible for this unsightly situation for a country that has all it takes to be prosperous than bad governance.
He also noted that the naira has depreciated badly in the last seven-and-a-half years of the Buhari administration from N196.92 in June 2015 to N445.83 to the dollar for interbank Foreign Exchange market as at November 2022. He said this figure from the Central Bank of Nigeria, represents 53 percent depreciation against the dollar.
“As a result, Nigeria’s foreign debt burden increased by N9 trillion. This is an increase of 228 per cent of debt in seven years, from $10 billion from 2015 to $40.06 billion (figures from the Debt Management Office), being the worst in seven years. It will cost the country N9 trillion to pay the $40.06 billion debts,” he said.
Engineer Sani also explained that Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) recently said the country lost 619.7 million barrels of crude oil valued at $46.16 billion or N16.25 trillion in 12 years, from 2009 to 2020 amounting to 80 percent loses of its oil revenue.
Also, the ADP presidential candidate said crimes against Nigeria are not limited to the oil and gas sector as the leadership of the Central Bank of Nigeria is immersed in crisis.
“As we are aware, the sensitive materials for elections are warehoused in the CBN. However, our CBN has suddenly become a house of politics with the head not long ago plunging into the presidential race of the ruling party. Soon afterwards, the same man was reported to be deeply immersed in acts of gross misconducts. The DSS has sought a court order to arrest him over tangible allegations of financing terrorism, fraudulent activities and economic crimes of national security dimensions,” he stressed.
Engineer Sani suggested that the Augean stables in the CBN should be cleansed immediately and with surgical precision as the rot must not be covered with the cloak of the exigency of the election.
He said the rule of law must come into play if the country is to be returned on the track of rapid economic transformation, social integration, security and stability.
On what an ADP government will offer, the presidential candidate said it will key into the prevailing global agenda of Climate Change, Energy Transition and Information and Communication Technology (ICT), the driver of the Fourth Industrial Revolution to tackle issues relating to economic, security, health and education sectors among other critical spheres in the overall socio-economic development of the country.
As President, Engineer Sani remarked, he will be focused on the implementation of my party’s seven-point agenda of education, agriculture, health, security, infrastructure, oil and gas and war against corruption.
On the 2023 elections, Engineer Sani expressed his confidence and that of the ADP with the arrangements that have been put in place by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) towards ensuring a transparent, credible and acceptable elections.
He commended the courage, patriotism and clear-sighted vision displayed by INEC in the introduction of technological devices such as BVAS and IReV as well as the electronic transmission of election results.
He said: “The goal of every patriotic Nigerian and the expectation of the wider world is to see INEC conducting a free, fair and credible elections under a conducive environment where the votes of the electorate will count.”
He pointed out ADP government will decisively deal with security matters and build a People’s Military and a People’s Police Force stressing that the people must own the army and the police.
According to him, the ADP has taken cognizance of the shortage of personnel in the security agencies and will accordingly immediately engage in rapid expansion in the number of officers and men charged with the security and safety of the country.
