By Isaac Aimurie and Henry Oqua
Presidential aspirant on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and former vice president of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar, has said that both Deborah Samuel Yakubu, and her reported attackers in Sokoto State, were wrong.
Atiku said this on Friday, May 13, 2022, when he paid a courtesy visit to the Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, at Government House, Benin City, the state capital.
The former Vice President also said that his party, the PDP will decide his running mate after consulting with him.
Speaking on the twit that was deleted from his Twitter handle, Atiku said: “Every tweet has to get my approval; unfortunately, this tweet, because I was travelling all over the country, did not have my approval, so I said it should be taken out and that every tweet must have my express approval.”
He added: “I am not a person who is afraid to take a stand on issues, you know the stand I took on Sharia. I was pelted, abused but how long did the Sharia last? I told them they were having a political Sharia and I was vilified and they threw stones at me, but that did not make me change my position on Sharia and where is the Sharia today? The only thing that went wrong with that post is that it was not authorized by me.”
The presidential aspirant had earlier condemned the mob attack on Deborah as gruesome murder and extended his condolences to her family on his Twitter handle.
He assured that if elected, he would prioritize education and ensure that funds allocated to the sector are well utilized to check the increasing number of out-of-school-children in the country.
“Education is one of my key priority areas when we come to power. If you can recall, we created the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), we also created the Education Tax so that we can provide sufficient funds for all the States and local government areas to invest in education.
“We also made it compulsory for Nigerian children to be educated free of charge through this taxation. The PDP has continued to make sure education is compulsory, but unfortunately, since the All Progressives Congress (APC) came into office all the funds are either diverted or misappropriated and the level of out-of-school children has considerably been going higher.”
Commenting on zoning within the PDP, he said: “We said in future, zoning decisions should be taken six months before the commencement of primaries so it would be settled before anything else. The PDP is the originator of zoning and power rotation. Now that it is open, all aspirants have equal opportunities.”
