Forget what INEC brandished as the results of the 2019 presidential election, Atiku clearly defeated Buhari and even the President's close family members know this.

Fast-forward to 2022, and as a member of the electoral act and constitutional review committee that worked with members of the National assembly to produce the new electoral act, I can boldly say that the era of trees, snakes and monkeys voting in Nigeria is over.

No more remote controls, incident forms, manual accreditation, and the demonic inconclusive elections that some highly placed political criminals use to override the wish of the people.

The Osun Governorship election this year has shown us that no matter how long it takes, election riggers and manipulators can only delay the mandate of a popular candidate.

Atiku Abubakar is by far the most popular and the most prepared presidential candidate in this election. Beyond the fact that he was Nigeria's first democratically elected vice president under this democratic dispensation, he is the only candidate with that level of experience among all those contesting to replace Buhari and his catastrophic government that has reduced our economy to its worst state since we gained independence in 1960 and left our currency struggling for relevance with the Zimbabwean dollar.

There are certain challenges only a salary earner or one who was previously a salary earner can understand. Unlike Obi, Atiku was not born with the proverbial silver spoon. He was a salary earner at the Nigerian customs service for about 20 years and as a result, he understands the pains of salary earners when inflation strikes. This explains why he goes to great lengths to ensure that salaries that are paid at his firms can take care of families and alerts for workers salaries hits their account early enough to keep them motivated and help them take care of thier needs.

As a former civil servant himself, Atiku understands how the civil service works and the need to make government services more efficient. Nigeria today has one of the biggest civil service in the world, with over 720,000 salary earners on the federal government payroll alone. The civil service swallows more that half of the our national budget every year even though they make up less than one percent of our entire population.

With Nigerians yearning for a reform of the civil service, there is the need to elect a candidate with first hand understanding of the problems and issues that has transformed the Nigerian civil service from the engine room that drives development to a clog in the wheel of progress.

Tinubu and Obi do not have any civil service experience, they dont understand how it operates, talkless of how to reform it. In contrast Atiku Abubakar with over 20 years experience in the glory days of the civil service understands the pains of civil servants and his multi dimentional digital approach to restructuring the civil service is what our country needs to trigger the process that will transform our dysfunctional civil service to the "vaibranium" that drives development and deliver real benefits to our people.

Tinubu and Obi were two term governors of their respective states, however, you cannot compare that with the experience that comes with being the Vice President of a country of over 200 million people.

As chairman of the National Economic Council from 1999 to 2007, Atiku Abubakar was an epitome of who a Vice President should be. His passion for a better and prosperous Nigeria is evident in the caliber of technocrats and specialists he personally convinced to return to the country and join hands with the government to develop our country.

As head of the Economic Management Team, Atiku and his team which included the current Director-General of the World Trade Organization Dr.  Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, successfully renegotiated and paid off Nigeria’s entire debt with the Paris Club before the current disaster's in government plunged our unborn children into the biggest debt trap in the history of our country with about ₦50 trillion in debts hanging over our necks.

Under Tinubu's lackeys in Lagos, the story is not different, because despite the huge internally generated revenue it rakes in every month, Lagos sits at the top of the list of highly indebted states in Nigeria with nothing to show for it.

When it comes to the private sector experience, Abubakar towers above Tinubu and the upcoming Obi by miles. Atiku co-founded INTELS, one of the biggest oil and gas/ports logistics firms in Africa. His other business are huge job creators that employs more people than many state governments in Nigeria.

Tinubu on the other hand has no real businesses beyond negotiating a slice from your tax and prompting his rubber stamp state assemblies to legalize his tax collection illegalities.

Obi as a business man is mostly interested in importing from foreign countries and taking away jobs. Some of his rookie economic policies will shut down half of our manufacturing capacity in less than 100 days if they are ever implemented because it does not factor in critical aspects of local production.

Perhaps one of the major reason most Nigerians are queuing behind the Atiku presidential bid is his sterling records as Head of the National Council on Privatization, which oversaw the sale of hundreds of loss-making and poorly managed public enterprises into highly successful and profit making ventures.

This action led to the influx of new and badly needed investments in vital sectors of our economy triggering massive growth in our GDP and the highest creation of new jobs ever witnessed in our country.

In addition, his efforts at transforming the telecomunications landscape completely changed how we do things today. Before the Obasanjo-Atiku era mobile phones were a luxury because the 350,000 available telephone lines provided by the then inefficient NITEL was grossly inadequate to cater for our massively growing population.

As Vice President and head of the economic team in Nigeria, Atiku inaugurated a 22-member Telecommunications Sector reform implementation committee, charged with the responsibility of facilitating greater access to phone services for Nigerians. His team went on to facilitate and supervise the licensing rounds for GSM licence in Nigeria conducted by the NCC under the leadership of Engr Ernest Ndukwe whose appointment as the Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) of the NCC was facilitated by Atiku.

Thanks to the patriotism and dedication of Atiku and his team, the mobile connection you are most likely using to read this article and the over 188 million registered mobile lines in our country are helping to improve the ease of doing business, create jobs and open the global space for young Nigerians to unleash their talents and support the development of our country.

In 2019, we lost an opportunity to take back our country because some criminals manufactured non-existent votes and brought in a 'black market Justices" to legalize an illegality in plain sight.

In 2023, armed with the new Electoral Act and increased awareness of what the enemies of our nation can do, let us rise as one irrespective of tribe, religion or political leaning and support the most experienced candidate to help take back and restructure our nation for the benefit of our people and generations unborn.

Dr. Oche Otorkpa (FRSPH-UK)

Writes From Abuja

Codepain:
Atiku will never win

Igbodicool:
Obi factor gave Atiku popularity...

Without Obi factor, the Atiku popularity depletes.


OBI is the main man!

OnyeAshuaUru:
Atiku na scam