The presidential candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has promised that if elected as president in 2019, the Minister of Youth that he will appoint would be less than 30years of age.
The former vice president made the promise Monday in Lagos at a town hall meeting with the youth in the state ahead of the 2019 elections, where he also reiterated that his cabinet would be made of 40 per cent youth.
According to him, “The most important thing why we are here today is about your future. I have many children, but only one of them is working for government, all the rest are working in my various companies, because what I believe in is creating jobs and I’m creating the jobs for the youth.”
Atiku added that the recent statement credited to President Muhammadu Buhari that the country’s economy was in a difficult situation, showed that the government in power had no solution to it.
He stated, “Now our president said the economy is ‘Pafuka’, and he told the governors it is going to be worse, is it the kind of government that you want to return to power? Do you know that in this government there is no single economist, so they don’t know even how to manage economy and (that) our lives whether young or old, or women or men depends on economy.
“If the economy is good, we prosper individually and collectively. If the economy is bad we all perish and they are asking you to return them to power. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen this is my opening remarks, the rest is yours.
“But let me repeat what I have pledged to do. I have pledged that 40% of my government will be youth, its a promise, I will not break it and my minister of youth is going to be less than 30 years. If you are less than 30 years you can bring your cv. Simply because the youth are the future of this country.”
Also speaking, his running mate, Peter Obi, urged the youth of Nigerian not to vote President Buhari in 2019.
He stated, “The reason why we are collapsing, your president has said something that I want you to be careful of, in an election time the president has said he can no longer run the country because the economy is collapsing.”
“If you enter a plane today, and the pilot tells you that there’s bad weather, he will tell you don’t worry, I will come out of it but, our president told us that we’re going into bad weather without telling us how we can come out of it.
“Nigerian youths I want you to listen, do not vote Buhari again they’re giving you today 10,000 , I don’t know anywhere in the world where they give people in the market, if not vote buying.”
On his part, the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Prince Uche Secondus, has declared that Nigeria is currently being run by “a college of Presidents” as nobody is really in charge of governance in the country at the moment.
Secondus said that 2019 general election provides Nigerians the opportunity to elect a “President that can interface and interact with them, a President you can touch, you can communicate with and you can feel.”
He said, “Your President does not know what is going on, he does not know that killings are going on in the country, from Benue to Zamfara.”
“He is confused about what to do and has told the governors that the economy is getting worse and he does not know what to do.
” Voting out the All Progressives Congress, APC in 2019 means a liberation for Nigerian youths and also a step towards getting the country out of bondage.”
