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..As Atiku, PDP weigh court action on credible evidence of rigging

Leading Development Economist and Lagos based capital market analyst, Dr. Chris Uzoho has called on the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) not to throw away the policy document upon which its presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar would have worked with if he had won the election.
The document christened ‘My Plan To Get Nigeria Working Again’ was launched by Atiku during the electioneering campaign in front of business moguls’ and captains of industry in Lagos.
However, whereas President Muhammadu Buhari and his running mate, Yemi Osinbajo Wednesday, February 27, 2019, received their certificate of return from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and her candidate have given a strong indication of contesting the figures in court.
It would be recalled that both the party and its flag bearer roundly rejected the results as announced by the INEC chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu yesterday morning.
Still on the stillbirth-Atiku Plan, Dr Uzoho revealed that the major factor that caused the loss in the presidential election was the long period of time consumed during the Markarfi-Sherif leadership crisis, saying “Otherwise, PDP would have stabilized early enough to renew their values amongst Nigerians”.
He further advised the party not to lose concentration, but to continue to build upon its strengths by gearing up for credible opposition ahead of next election by making sure it won a good number of states in the coming guber elections.
According to Uzoho, “Having gone through the document, I think it strategically captured what Nigeria needs now to meet up its peers among the comity of nations in terms of development planning and private sector development”.
“To me, if I have my way, I will even encourage the All Progressive Congress (APC) to pick up the document and study and see if it can adopt some of the economic policies so enumerated for the interest of moving Nigeria and the economy forward.
“We as a people will gain nothing if we take because of political affiliation, throw away a strategic development master plan that can take Nigeria out of poverty capital of the world and deepen job creation at the same time.
“If you go through the Atiku Plan, under ‘Our key Message’, you will begin to understand the fact that it took him time to develop the plan considering issues he raised as the structural fault-lines of Nigeria which have remained the key development inhibitors.
“For example, some of the issues he pointed out as key fault lines that need to be reviewed include the economy which had remained fragile and vulnerable in the last four years due to apparent lip service to issues of diversification of the economy.
“The plan also understands that the informal sector which is supposed to serve as the engine of growth has been under siege by multiple taxation and power crisis without any hope of stability in sight.
Uzoho added that “My major concern is the idea of the plan to review and strengthen the currently precarious fiscal system”.
“Under the political system currently practiced in the country which has been very hard to really define by any good student of political science, the current government must understand that to the extent moving the ship of governance as if nothing is wrong, it needs to know at all cost that the federal system as it is now is not working due to over-bearing influence of the centre and the weak federating units.
“I remember I read in the plan when Atiku said ‘Our vision is to transform Nigeria into a modern economy that works for its people and capable of taking its rightful place among the top 20 economies of the world. My economic policy will be job-centred especially for our teeming youth population”
In his final submission, the Development Economist averred that “There is nothing bad in Buhari administration adopting some key development plans in Atiku’s Plan for Nigeria because at the end, it will boil down to developing Nigeria and the ailing economy after all.”