By Godwin Tyonongu
Abuja
Barring any unforeseen circumstances, former vice-president and a presidential aspirant on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Atiku Abubakar, intends not to collect a dime as salary if voted into power.
Atiku, who was the first to declare his ambition to run on the platform of the party, said whatever he would get as salary would be put back to the people because he had gained much from the country; hence it was time for him to reciprocate the gesture.
Spokesman of the Atiku campaign Organisation, Malam Garba Shehu, who disclosed this to journalists in Abuja during an interactive session, said: “Atiku does not want to take one naira as salary, whatever he gets, he would want to put back to the people. He is a comfortable man, he is not lacking anything at his age; he flies his personal jet, he own houses, name them. His desperation for power is to make sure things work in this country.
“As you can see, he is prepared for it; go through his policy document and you can see what he meant for this country.”
Garba further said whenever the APC presidential aspirant was talking of overthrowing President Goodluck Jonathan, it should not be misconstrued to mean a coup, but rather through a free and fair election.
On those accusing the Turakin Adamawa of not finding anything commendable about the Jonathan administration, Garba wondered why anyone would expect an opposition party like the APC to be the one to issue press releases on daily basis praising Jonathan?
“If APC will issue a press statement everyday praising Jonathan, what will then be the difference? But even at that, he praised Jonathan when Nigeria overcame the Ebola scourge, he commended him on the establishment of Almajiri schools, when Nigeria won the Nations’ Cup, Atiku congratulated the president and the entire Nigerians and don’t forget he congratulated Jonathan when he was declared the winner of the 2011 elections.”
