of the Northern Elders Forum, NEF, Professor Ango Abdullahi, has said
the present crop of presidential candidates cannot fix Nigeria.
Though he gave what would pass for a fair assessment of the
presidential candidates of Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi and that of the
New Nigeria People’s Party, NNPP, Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso,
Abdullahi was emphatic about the presidential candidates of the ruling
All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the main
opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar, saying they
had nothing to offer.
He argued that they had been around the
political climate for a long time without commensurate positives to show
for it but noted, however, that Vice President Yemi Osinbajo who
contested the primaries in APC and a former banker, Mohammed
Hayatu-Deen, who also aspired for the ticket in the PDP would have made
better President as technocrats.
To this end, Abdullahi, who was also former Vice Chancellor of Ahmadu
Bello University, ABU, Zaria, said he would not queue behind any of the
candidates in terms of providing support.
Abdullahi said he would
rather tell Nigerians to brace up for the trouble ahead of them, should
any of the candidates become the next President.
The elderststes man bared his mind on major contemporary national issues via a phone chat with Vanguard weekend.
He
said: “No, we still haven’t got the man who we think will fix Nigeria.
What we have on ground is not good enough. How can you look at Tinubu
and Atiku to say they are the ones who will fix this country?
”They
have been on the ground for the last 25, 30 years and so on. What have
they done? What are we looking for? I was the one who encouraged a
technocrat to join this consensus. You probably had seen Mohammed Hayatu
Deen in the group of people going around looking for a consensus
arrangements in PDP. I was one of those who encouraged him. We haven’t
got the materials on the ground unfortunately.
“Peter Obi,
unfortunately, I don’t know him that much. He is a young man, he was the
former governor of Anambra State and he is a businessman.
“He
(Kwankwaso) is a good, young man. He started his politics with us and he
is quite smart. No doubt about it. Of course, he had some of these
debts that he acquired or he must have picked in other political
formations and so on but clearly, he is one of the bright ones around.
No doubt about that.
“I believe we have not had good array of
politicians. With due respect to some of them that one saw contesting, I
am not being selfish here by referring to certain people like Prof.
Osinbajo. He is a quality material but the political system will not
tolerate him.”
Asked if what Osinbajo did by running against his
political godfather, Tinubu, was not tantamount to betrayal of loyalty
and trust, Abdullahi said those were not what the country needed.
“What
has it got to do with what Nigeria wants? Is he a slave to the former
governor? I don’t understand this kind of analogy. Professor Osinbajo is
a human being entirely on his own merit and his accomplishments are
entirely his own and people should assess him as such. ”Those who needed
his services asked for his services.
When he served as the
attorney general of Lagos State, he was invited by the political system
of Lagos State. This is the way I look at it and when he became vice
president, I understand it is the president/party that identified him as
qualified and competent enough to be the vice president in the current
dispensation.
”Why shouldn’t he be because he served under XYZ. He
should be identified as an individual for leadership in the country,”
he said.
While asking Nigerians to prepare for the troubled days
ahead should any of the candidates become president in 2023, Abdullahi
said: “What I will tell Nigerians is that we are in trouble and the way
out is for Nigerians to agree that Nigeria is in trouble and that the
machineries that are on ground today, that are expected to find solution
to the challenges facing Nigeria are not appropriate and we have to go
back to the drawing board to see what we can do to save the Nigeria of
the future.
“I believe the politicians have failed. My belief is
that the political class has over the years failed to produce the kind
of quality leadership we require to deal with the problems of Nigeria
and which means that we should look for quality materials, not
necessarily within the mainstream political parties, from outside and
there have been a lot of discussions in Nigeria recently about
technocrats.”
Abdulahi also decried the N100 million cost of presidential nomination forms by the APC before the primary elections.
He
regretted that the country’s elders had either gone to sleep or joined
the politicians, rather than working to rescue the country from imminent
collapse.
“How can you pick a form for N100 million, for what? I
mean this is a clear sign of irresponsible corruption because somebody
whose total salary in four years, assuming he is president, his total
legitimate salary in four years will be, I think, N34 million, even with
the current salary that is being given to president.
”Why should
you pick a form for N100 million and you are not even sure you are going
to win the election. So, these are signs that the entire political
system is corrupt and unless we go back to the drawing board and do the
correct things that will make Nigerians participate in the process,
there will never be a time we will have good candidates from the
grassroots.
How can you say it is only one person from my local government who can represent me to elect the president? How?
“The
elders have relaxed themselves in the crowd of irresponsible political
class and they are just shouting like all the politicians are shouting
during campaigns. There is no difference between the elders now and the
politicians on ground as far as I am concerned.
”But what I
thought the elders should do is to agree that this country needs real
fixing and, therefore, we should sit down and seriously look at all the
issues and objectively and honestly and truthfully agree that these
issues facing Nigeria; not the issues facing northeast, northwest or
north central or southeast, southwest or south-south, should be tackled
head-on.”
credit; Vanguard News Nigeria
