{"id":2093,"date":"2014-09-25T08:01:40","date_gmt":"2014-09-25T08:01:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=2093"},"modified":"2014-09-25T08:01:40","modified_gmt":"2014-09-25T08:01:40","slug":"2015-atiku-declares-says-corruption-worse-under-jonathan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=2093","title":{"rendered":"2015: Atiku declares, says corruption worse under Jonathan"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Former<\/a>
Former Vice-President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A former Vice-President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has formally declared his intention to contest the 2015 Presidential election on the platform of the All Progressives Congress.<\/p>\n

Abubakar, at a ceremony held at the Yar\u2019Adua Centre in Abuja on Wednesday, explained that\u00a0\u00a0 his desire to become President was born out of the need to give back to the nation.<\/p>\n

Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha and the Publisher of Leadership, Sam Nda-Isaiah,\u00a0\u00a0 had also declared interest in the APC presidential ticket. A former Head of State and National Leader of the APC, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, and Governor of Kano State, Rabiu Kwankwaso, have been reported\u00a0\u00a0 to also have interest in the ticket.<\/p>\n

A confident Abubakar told his supporters during the ceremony that he had the capacity\u00a0\u00a0 to bring people together and turn things around for the better in the country.<\/p>\n

He pointed out that the glaring mismatch between \u201cour potential and our achievements provides a golden opportunity\u201d for him to lead Nigerians to rekindle their innovative instinct and turn the Nigerian dream into a reality.<\/p>\n

He explained that in spite of many challenges faced by Nigerians, they had refused to give up on the country.<\/p>\n

The former Vice-President said the 2015 elections were about Nigerian youths and the nation\u2019s future.<\/p>\n

He stressed that the nation, under the current administration, had failed to provide the required environment for the youth to reach their full potential.<\/p>\n

The former vice-president said, \u201cIt is inspiring that amidst difficulties and growing anxiety over the future of our country, our people have refused to succumb to despair and hopelessness.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis never-say-die attitude gives me immense hope and it is one of the reasons why I can never give up on Nigeria.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reacting to the agitation for generational shift, he said his generation owed younger Nigerians the responsibility of offering its political shoulders to them to climb upon.<\/p>\n

This, he said, was necessary to improve their vision and expand their horizon.<\/p>\n

He noted that it was this trans-generational collaboration and partnership that represented the best model to create the future that the nation desired and deserved.<\/p>\n

Nigeria, he said, should never again be subjected to leadership experimentation or learning on the job.<\/p>\n

He recalled that the Olusegun Obasanjo administration which he was a part of successfully reformed some critical sectors of the economy such as telecommunications and the capital market.<\/p>\n

Abubakar said, \u201cAs Vice-President\u00a0\u00a0 from 1999 to 2007, I worked closely with my boss, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, who is a passionate defender of Nigerian unity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe focused on macro-economic stability and transforming critical areas such as banking, insurance, oil and gas, telecommunications, pension and the civil service.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe created institutions that should lay the foundation for good governance and accountability such as the Bureau of Public Procurement, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, SERVICOM, whose golden rule is \u2018Serve others as you would like to be served.\u2019 Sadly, most of these institutions are now mere shadows of themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the Obasanjo administration was able to deliver because it had vision, commitment and dedication .<\/p>\n

The former Vice-President expressed sadness that rather than pay down the nation\u2019s debts, \u201cour borrowing has been on the increase even at a time the price of oil has consistently been above $100 per barrel since the inception of the Goodluck Jonathan administration.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

He argued that resentment, disillusionment and hopelessness were the factors on which insecurity and disharmony thrived.<\/p>\n

Nigeria, he said, was more divided today than at any other time since the civil war, adding that there was a disturbing rise in ethnic nationalism and religious bigotry because \u201cwe have a governance deficit.\u201d<\/p>\n

The aspirant said, \u201cOur country seems to be on auto pilot with no one in charge. Nigeria\u00a0\u00a0 now more than ever before, needs a strong, dynamic, decisive, competent and visionary leadership that can halt the current drift of the ship of state.\u00a0\u00a0 Corruption needs to be fought, jobs need to be created,\u00a0\u00a0 our infrastructure needs to be rebuilt,\u00a0\u00a0 social services need to be provided and insecurity needs to be tackled in a decisive, robust and multi-pronged way.\u201d<\/p>\n

While commending the leadership of the APC for adopting the modified open primaries in selecting its flag bearers at all levels, Abubakar said the party remained the most potent political force to end years of PDP\u2019s dominance of the political space.<\/p>\n

The leader of the National Assembly caucus of the APC, Senator George Akume, who spoke on behalf of other party leaders at the event, said the APC has within its ranks, the men and women who have what it takes to rebuild Nigeria.<\/p>\n

Five politicians, lawyers\u00a0\u00a0 ask court to stop Jonathan <\/strong><\/p>\n

Meanwhile,\u00a0\u00a0 three politicians and two lawyers have separately asked a Federal High Court in Abuja\u00a0\u00a0 to stop\u00a0\u00a0 Jonathan and Vice-President Namadi Sambo from re-contesting in 2015.<\/p>\n

The plaintiffs argued in their suits that by the virtue of constitutional provisions, the President and the Vice-President, had previously been elected for one single term of four years.<\/p>\n

Two politicians \u2013 Adejumo Ajagbe and Olatoye Wahab \u2013 filed the first suit while two lawyers and another politician filed the second on September 19 .<\/p>\n

The lawyers are\u00a0\u00a0 Mase Acho and Saeeq Sarki. The third is Murtala Abubakar.<\/p>\n

Ajagbe, who claimed to be a member of the PDP in Lagos State, and Wahab, a member of the APC in Ogun State, said they were presidential aspirants whose interest would be jeopardised if Jonathan and Sambo were not barred.<\/p>\n

The two plaintiffs, who engaged the services of four Senior Advocates of Nigeria, joined the Independent National Electoral Commission and the Attorney General of the Federation as\u00a0\u00a0 defendants.<\/p>\n

The SANs\u00a0\u00a0 are James Ocholi, A. J. Owonikoko, Okon Efut and Mahmud Magaji.<\/p>\n

The suit marked, FHC\/ABJ\/CS\/662\/2014, was assigned to Justice Ahmed Mohammed but the two defendants have yet to respond to it.<\/p>\n

The plaintiffs argued that by\u00a0\u00a0 virtue of the oaths taken by Jonathan and Sambo following the death of President Umaru Yar\u2019adua in 2010 and their subsequent re-election in 2011, both of them were deemed to have completed the two terms allowed by law.<\/p>\n

Their statement of claim read in part, \u201cThat being so, the reference to \u2018two previous elections\u2019 in Section 137(1)(b) of the Constitution includes two previous oath of allegiance and oath of office as President.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is therefore safe to conclude that a Vice President, who had taken the oath of allegiance and oath of office for two previous terms as President is, in law, deemed to have been elected into the office of President at two previous elections, thereby standing disqualified to contest another election into that office.\u201d<\/p>\n

They raised five questions for the court\u2019s determination and sought seven reliefs<\/em>, including an order of perpetual injunction, restraining the AGF and INEC from accepting as candidate in the 2015 presidential election, anybody caught by \u201ctwo-previous election limit and eight-year term limit.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A former Vice-President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has formally declared his intention to contest the 2015 Presidential election on the platform of the All Progressives Congress. Abubakar, at a ceremony held at the Yar\u2019Adua Centre in Abuja on Wednesday, explained that\u00a0\u00a0 his desire to become President was born out of the need to give back to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2094,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Former-Vice-President-Alhaji-Atiku-Abubakar-360x239.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-xL","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2093"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2095,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2093\/revisions\/2095"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}