•Atiku
Former Vice president and Presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar, has said Nigeria’s democracy is yet to translate into prosperity for the citizens.
He also blamed some political actors for their behaviour, saying it has betrayed the ideas of those who fought and died for democracy in the country.
Atiku stated this during his keynote address at the Democracy Day Dialogue by the Coalition Political Action Committee (COPAC) in Abuja, yesterday, reports Weekend Trust.
Lamenting that the cost of living crisis has become an unbearable burden to the ordinary families, he said fuel, transport and medicine have become luxuries that only few Nigerians could afford.
According to him, “Food insecurity has become synonymous with our daily reality. The statistics are staggering and the warnings of impending hardship now haunt millions. Farms lie fallow, markers stand empty and for too many of our people have grown accustomed to going to bed hungry in a country that cannot even guarantee their safety.”
The presidential candidate said, “We hold elections periodically, but seventy per cent of Nigerians do not believe those exercises reflect their wishes or allow them to vote out bad government. We possess democratic institutions, yet too many of them appear weaponised against the very people they were created to protect.
“We have a robust politics, but governance is plainly absent. We celebrate democracy, while a hollowed-out version is served to us daily marked by constitutional overreach, and a stubborn refusal to submit to the checks of accountability.”
He alleged that corruption thrives with impunity, almost as though it were a national sport, with national unity threatened by narrow, parochial interests.
“Our democratic structures, systems, and institutions are suffering an erosion whose malignancy has spread to every segment of our bleeding society.”
According to him, insecurity had turned parts of the country into a land of terror, bloodletting, and mourning.
“Our citizens are cut down by the day in this senseless tide of violence. Our brave but overstretched military and security agencies bear the brunt of our collective failure to support them with sustainable policies, with the vital non-kinetic instruments of this war, and with the resources this fight demands.”
Atiku said an ADC federal government will bring the cost-of-living crisis to an end through urgent, practical interventions that restore dignity to the hardworking and innovative citizens.
“We will secure our food supply, and we will tackle wage stagnation in realistic ways and on credible timelines,” he added.
