Why some political elites don't want me to become president – Atiku Abubakar

Former vice president of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar has alleged that some political elites are making several attempts to prevent him from clinging the presidential ticket for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ahead of the 2019 elections.

Atiku said there had been failed attempts by these individuals to ensure he loses at the PDP presidential primaries scheduled to hold in Port Harcourt, Rivers state.

Leadership reports that Atiku while speaking at the party's presidential nomination media chat in Abuja said, his refusal to be used by the elite to satisfy their personal aspirations as well as their belief that he is too independent and principled are part of the reasons they don’t support him.

Atiku said: “If you are not going to be used, if you are not going to satisfy their personal aspiration. Part of the problem they (elite) have with me, is that they say I am independent, principled and so on. Unfortunately the Nigeria public is not politically sophisticated to override the conspiracy of these political elite. They rely on the political elite to direct them”.

“When we came in in 1999 a barrel of crude oil was less than 10 dollars in the market, we met less than $5billion in our foreign reserve," the former vice president said.

"With all that, we were still able to manage the economy of the country to the extent that we paid all our foreign debt and became debt free, reform policies. We were able to turn around the economy then, so I don’t think is an impossible task to do now. If we given the opportunity, I believe it is doable.

I believe I have the experience and the capacity to deal with these issues more than any one of them, because I have dealt with them before. I assembled the best economic team with that we went well and everybody attested to what we have done in those eight years.

We liberalised the economy, we expanded the private sector’s participation and try to limit government to the necessary issues. If these policies we started were continued, today we will have been in a better country," he said.