Atiku wants Buhari to form an inclusive government

Former Vice President and All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has advised the President-elect, Major General Muhammadu Buhar, to form an all-inclusive government.  His team, according to Atiku, should comprise people from various backgrounds.

Abubakar, who spoke as chairman of the 36th Kaduna International Trade Fair seminar, titled Promoting Domestic Production for National Sustainable Economic Development, urged politicians who lost elections during the general elections to support the in-coming government and move the country forward.

 According to him, the Buhari government, after inauguration on May 29, should reconcile all aggrieved people, before and after the election, pointing out that it would lay solid foundation for success.

We have to do all that is humanly possible to ensure that there is reconciliation, peace among the various components that make up this country. We are still in the process of nation building and we will do all that is humanly possible to ensure an inclusive government of all the people that make up this country.

Meanwhile, in his lecture at the seminar, Guest Speaker and former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank, Dr. Obadiah Malafia, said, Notwithstanding the potentials, the country's economic and social conditions have remained far below the minimum expectations of ordinary citizens.

According to Malafia, some of the socio-economic indices, although much improved, still remain far from the internationally-agreed Millennium Development Goals (MDG) set for 2015.

He urged the incoming administration to reverse the negative trend and save the nation from collapse. Atiku said that, apart from the economic challenges that the President-elect Buhari would inherit from President Goodluck Jonathan's government, Buhari has to confront the nation's problems head on to put the economy on positive track for development.

 On the perennial power problem in the country, he argued: I think privatisation is the problem of the power reform. I think it is the political will to do the right thing.You know, we have three (3) or four (4) sources of energy in this country, hydro, gas, coal and solar. I think it is up to the leadership of the in-coming administration to take a short term, medium and long term view to solve the power situation in the country.

My belief is that it has to be in three (3) stages, so that within two to three years the country will be able to generate enough electricity.

Within may be another two or three years we would make sure our transmission base is put right. And again, within another three years we would move on to the gas solution.