Former vice president and presidential candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, has appointed Usman Yusuf as special adviser on Community Engagement to the Atiku, Okowa Presidential Campaigns.
In a letter, personally signed by the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku charged Yusuf to use his vast experiences and contacts to effectively discharge the responsibilities of his office.
The professor is by the appointment charged to provide advisory services on community engagement-related issues by identifying community-based organisations for necessary interface with local communities, organising creative programmes and events regularly with relevant stakeholders of the local community with the goal of galvanising support for the PDP candidate and ensuring victory in the election,.
He is also charged to build strong relationships with local community leaders, community-based organisations, gender and various age groups in the grassroots for the propagation of Atiku’s plans and ideas to ensure acceptability and necessary support in the local communities.
Yusuf was the former executive secretary of National Health Insurance Scheme.
The professor of haematology-oncology and bone marrow transplantation and an alumnus of Ahmadu Bello University had, in an interview, said it will be difficult for the All Progressives Congress presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, to campaign in the South East.
He had written several articles in support of the PDP candidate.