By Magnus Effiong
The presidential candidate of the People Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has restated his resolve to allocate $10 million for education and youth empowerment if voted into power in the February 25, 2023 election.
The PDP candidate said this in Calabar, the Cross River State capital, Monday, during the presidential rally of the party.
Our reporter observed that the governorship candidate of the party in the State, who is also a sitting Senator, Prof Sandy Onor, some members of the State Executive Committee, Senator representing Cross River North, Jarigbe Agom who is also a senatorial candidate, boycotted the presidential campaign rally.
Others who did not also attend the rally were a sitting House of Representatives member, Rt Hon Essien Ayi, some House of Assembly members/candidates and many founding fathers of the party in Cross River, including former Governor Donald Duke.
But, speaking on the priority his government would give to security, unemployment and poverty if voted, Alhaji Atiku said, “we’ll allocate $10billion for the education of our youths and empower some with skills thereby eliminating poverty and criminality. With this jobs shall be created and insecurity shall reduce drastically.”
He said it was becoming a reality that the country would not move forward with the current political situations and therefore promised to ensure restructuring is carried out as a major policy thrust of his administration.
“We shall move to restructure the country as a major policy of the incoming PDP government by reducing the powers of the federal government and giving them to the States and local governments so that we will hold all our leaders from all tiers of government responsible for development.
“This will make the Federal Government less powerful and then a greater powers and resources will be deployed to the State for the good of our people,” he stated.
“Let me also assure you that with the PDP in charge, your agricultural produce shall have value with road network to ready markets will be a priority and Nigeria and people of Cross River State shall smile again
“We have suffered for almost 8 years now, enough of the suffering. We are saying bye to APC and its suffering agenda. I promise you, better days are ahead again.”
Earlier, the National Chairman of the party, Dr Iyorchia Ayu, called on the people of Cross River to reclaim their “stolen” mandate, and noted that”Cross River has always voted for PDP, and I say again that Cross River is PDP.”
