Former Nigeria vice-president and presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Atiku Abubakar has urged Nigerians to keep hope alive as regards state of the nation in 2019.

“Don’t lose heart and hope. Nigeria is no stranger to overcoming difficulties,” Abubakar said in his New Year message.

“In 2018, we became the world headquarters for extreme poverty, however, I am convinced that in 2019, if we chart a new course, we can become the world headquarters for hope and extreme devotion to the cause of lifting our people out of poverty.”

Abubakar, who described 2019 as a blank page, said Nigerians have the responsibility “not settle for whatever it brings.”  He noted that citizens must “take collective action, through our choices.”

The former vice-president on several occasions criticised current president Muhammadu Buhari’s administrative resolve to manage the country’s economic, security and other national challenges.

Abubakar said, “We can chart a new course and open a new chapter that sees every Nigerian living in peace and prosperity with their neighbour. It can be the year when our youths finally get a job instead of being unfairly tagged as lazy. With purposeful leadership, it can also be the year when we put an end to terrorism and usher in a golden age of peace.”

While Nigeria goes to the polls to elect a new president or re-elect Buhari, Atiku said “what 2019 can provide, is the leadership that has the capacity to translate that vision into reality.”

According to him, Nigerians need a leadership that would bring national unity and an end to division and sectionalism.

He urged Nigerians to replicate the spirit of unity it demonstrated to become the first nation in the world to defeat and overcome the Wild Ebola Virus, when other countries were struggling with the scourge in 2014.

“That resilience is domiciled in our national psyche and together we shall win forever. We shall win over forces of disunity. We shall win over forces of poverty and backwardness,” Atiku said.