2023 was challenging for Nigerians, Atiku laments

•Tasks govt on people centred National Planning

By Lateef Ibrahim, Abuja

Former Vice President and presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has described the year 2023 as a very challenging one for Nigerians.
Atiku in his new year message to Nigerians on Sunday, pointed out that the rising cost of food items, goods and services, the malfunction in the nation’s national economy and the degenerating state of national and community security are all existential challenges that we have to face squarely in the New Year.
To walk back from these throes of adversities, the former Vice President pointed out, will require a well-thought vision of National Planning that will deliberately make the common people of Nigeria the centrepiece of our development.
The government, he advised, must show a clear direction of its policy projections and desist from the subsisting behaviour of groping in the dark.
Atiku, in the New Year message personally signed by him, did, “It is with great adulation to God and a heart full of gratitude that I join other patriots to welcome Nigerians to the New Year 2024.
“The past year was definitely a challenging year, but the lessons that we took away from it are what should prepare us for the future that the New Year holds.
“It is my belief that one of the reasons the Almighty created time and season is for us to take stock of our realities and effect necessary amends.
“Certainly, many families and businesses already know the intensity of the trying times that we are currently going through- though we could have taken a completely different pathway, had the government been smarter with their policy prescriptions.
“The rising cost of food items, goods and services, the malfunction in our national economy and the degenerating state of our national and community security are all existential challenges that we have to face squarely in the New Year.
“While many companies have closed their operations in Nigeria and moved their enterprise elsewhere with clearer policies and visions, the situation of life for Nigerians keeps getting direr.
“To walk back from these throes of adversities will require a well-thought vision of National Planning that will deliberately make the common people of Nigeria the centrepiece of our development.
“The Year 2024 is still new on its canvas; and so, there is ample time for the current government to champion a pathway to addressing the acute hardship that Nigerians are going through.
“The government must show a clear direction of its policy projections and desist from the subsisting behaviour of groping in the dark.
“While I congratulate all Nigerians for witnessing this New Year, I also wish to call on everyone to double our efforts to put our respective families and businesses in good shape”, he said.