The rising poverty estimated at 95.1 million by the end of 2019 and economic hardship, is forcing Nigerians to debate over the kind of leadership that will address their sufferings.
The country will be electing a new President in February 2023 with four frontline runners: Peoples Democratic Party’s Atiku Abubakar; All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu; Peter Obi of the Labour Party and New Nigerian Peoples Party’s Rabiu Kwankwaso, contesting for the top job.
In this interview with THE WHISTLER, a Professor of Economics and the Dean, Faculty of Economics, Kaduna State University, Aminu Yusuf Usman advised Nigerians to vote a candidate who can think out of the box to solve Nigeria’s economic and security crisis. Excerpts…
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With Over 90 million Nigerians living in poverty, what kind of president should the electorates look out for in 2023?
What Nigerians need is actually a President that has a track record. Somebody who has done it before and able to do it now, because we don’t need somebody who is unprepared or going to do trial and error. If somebody has been there and has done something, let him show us what he has been able to do so that we can know his capacity to do either something similar or much better than he did before.
This idea of having unprepared President who learn on the job despite the fact that this country is having tremendous challenges that is becoming unsurmountable because of the special level of insecurity and criminality in the country.
Almost every segment of the country is facing enormous security challenges. If you take the North-West, you will see banditry and kidnapping, if you take the North-East, Boko Haram, if you take the North-Central it is the Fulani-Herders crisis, if you take the South-South, it is the wanton stealing of crude oil that is about crippling the economy. If you take everywhere, there are major issues. And all these security challenges have implications on the economy.
So, we need somebody who is actually hands-on somebody who has been there, he doesn’t have to be the president, but he has been a governor or a minister and show your scorecard and a blueprint. We should not elect a president that doesn’t have a clear blueprint that we should be able to assess him with.
If you look at it, Buhari came with the slogan of the economy and corruption and security, but virtually, the government across all levels have failed in these three areas, because they have gotten worse that before.
Whoever is coming now whether PDP, APC ANPP or LP must be able to show us his scorecard. Because all of them were in government previously. Kwankwaso was there as governor for eight years, four years minister of defense, Obi was four years governor, Atiku Abubakar was eight years Vice President, Asiwaju (Bola Ahmed Tinubu) was one time eight-year governor.
We also need to elect a President that is very healthy and agile. We don’t need a President that has either been managed either locally or internationally in the hospital and things like that. We need people whose brain is still working. We have been suffering from this with President Buhari.