Reuben Abati, a veteran journalist and former Senior Adviser on Media and Publicity to former President Goodluck Jonathan, has said that Nigerians voted for the ’emilokan’ manifesto in the last 2023 presidential election.
Abati, the lead anchor in the popular Arise TV breakfast talk show, Morning Show, made this known on Monday.
The statement comes after former Vice President Atiku Abubakar stated that Nigerians were inundating him with inquiries on solutions to Nigeria’s current challenges.
Atiku said President Bola Tinubu’s government should be humble enough to borrow from his ideas to solve the country’s challenges in the interest of the Nigerian people.
However, speaking about the matter on TV, Abati said Nigerians rejected Atiku’s manifesto and went for Tinubu’s own in 2023.
According to him, Nigerians have made their choice and so should leave with the choice they made.
He further said that the political elite in the country got it wrong because they have removed the people quotient from the democratic equation.
Abati said: “The main story is the Waziri Adamawa, Atiku Abubakar saying that he would have done better, and the Presidency is saying that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Well, one of the challenges we face in this country is that we run on a presidential system of government. A presidential system in which in our own context, ‘the winner takes it all’. And the winner pretends to be a monarch and pretends, you know, to be the supreme authority; even if, the 1999 constitution is effective in that regard that it makes the president the supreme of authority.
“The thing about presidential democracy is also that, you know, once you win, you win. And what Nigerians are dealing with right now is the fact that we are not in a parliamentary system. We’re running a presidential system. And once you make your choice, you live with it.
“Now my first message to Atiku Abubakar is that the same manifesto that he is asking President Tinubu to return to was the same manifesto with which he engaged with Nigerians in 2023. And Nigerians voted for the “Emilokan” manifesto. So the thing about presidential democracy is that, okay you have voted for your.., you have you have made your choice, live with that choice. It may sound very extreme but that is the reality.
“However, Atiku has now intervened, acting like an opposition leader. And we keep calling for opposition politics. Is not part of the structure of our political choice. But he says this is my manifesto. And he says more or less that Tinubu administration is not doing well. He’s riding on the wave of populism because there are many Nigerians who shared that view that the people from Lagos and the “City Boy”, their leader, you know, it’s just not getting it right.
“And then he says in his own manifesto: This is what he would have done with fiscal reform. Too, he would have led by example. When he says he would have led by example. Is he saying he will not change aircraft or he will not travel in a long convoy? He was not specific in that regard.
“He said he will have very adopted a gradualist approach to the removal of subsidy. How? The devil is in the details. He said, for example, that he would have dealt with corruption with the opaqueness of NNPC and all of that.
“Look, some of these things that are opposition leaders say are better said than done. I think the big Issue is not Atiku Abubakar saying “I will have done better”. He will have to wait till 2027. The big issue is not the president saying “what iss he talking about Nigerians chose us”.
“I think the political elite in this country, they got it wrong. Because they have removed the people quotient in the democratic equation. Whether the system is parliamentary or presidential, the people are saying we are hungry. We are suffering.
“The responsibility, whether it’s Atiku Abubakar that has a better manifesto, or it is Bola Tinubu that has the better manifesto, it is for the people of Nigeria to say under this President we are doing well.
“The truth of the matter is that the people of Nigeria are saying that they are groaning, they are suffering under president Bola Tinubu. That is the basic content that we can hang on to.
“But for Atiku Abubakar saying, “I would have done better, okay, what do you expect him to say? But in 2023 the people whether they made a choice or they were rigged to make a choice, this is where we are at this moment.
“The question is, and that should be the responsibility of the opposition, is to come up with ideas about how this country can be moved forward. If we say the people from Lagos are too dumb, and to dependent on IMF and and World Bank, and they just do textbook governance. Okay, what ideas do we have that we can tell them, so that we can expose their stupidity in their expectations that the ‘Jagaban of Lagos’, also the ‘City Boy of Lagos’ will also realise that this enterprise is not about him alone and his voice.It’s about all of us, and we have a a duty to rescue this country, to salvage this country. That for me is the main subject.”
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