Why I parted ways with Buhari – Atiku

A former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, has explained why he parted ways with President Muhammadu Buhari.

Atiku said this in an interview with the BBC Hausa Service in London, which was monitored by Daily Trust.

The former vice president, who resigned his membership of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), returned to his former party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), now the major opposition party in the country.

“The APC started on a wrong footing after President Buhari assumed office. Also, the way the government is being run; I made my suggestions but it seems they were deemed not important to them,” Atiku said. He also said he was aspiring to be president to be able to right the things he could not during the eight years he served as vice president.

“I want to be the President of Nigeria because I would be able to do things I could not do as vice president,” he said, and added that if elected president, he would start with the country’s economy and that he believed Nigerians would trust him in the fight against corruption, citing how their administration set up the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

He also vowed that there was no personality that he would not investigate if he was elected president, just as he dismissed insinuations that he was desperate to become president.

On the allegations that he had been barred from the United States of America, Atiku said he had applied for a US visa but was denied and was given no reason for the denial.

He denied allegations that his house in the US had been auctioned. “I bought the house for my wife and she was the one who sold it,” he added.

On the recent comment of the president concerning Nigerian youths, Atiku said he disagreed with the president. “I don’t see Nigerian youths as lazy,” he said.

Atiku called on the youths to get more involved in politics, promising to give them 40 per cent of his cabinet if elected president.