Obi Tells CNN: Electing Leaders Based On ‘My Turn, Criminal Structure’ Put Nigeria In Mess

The candidate of Labour Party in the forthcoming presidential election, Peter Obi, has revealed how he plans to transform Nigeria’s economy and deal with the country’s myriad of security challenges if elected president.

Obi, in an interview with CNN’s Zain Asher on Friday, said Nigeria needs a leader that is ready to tackle the issue of security heads-on as it was impacting negatively on the economy.

The LP candidate said the problems facing the country were solvable, but needed competent and committed leaders with a clear vision of how to deal with them.

He noted that the country had in the past chosen leaders based on ethnicity, religion or one form of bias, a phenomenon he said had put the country in a state of physical mess.

“If you have a leader that is competent, has the capacity, and has commitment to start dealing with it, you’re not going to solve it overnight but there will be a clear, visible, measurable attempt to deal with it. And we know they are things that are solvable, they are things that can be dealt with decisively, but you have to have a leader that if you look at what they have been able to do in the past, you can say yes that person can solve them,” Obi said.

ECONOMY

Obi noted that for Nigeria to move forward economically, the country needs to reduce the cost of governance and deal decisively with the issue of corruption.

“There are a variety of things, one is that you have to deal decisively with the issue of security, it’s impacting negatively on the economy today, you have to deal with it head on because you have to get the farmers to go back to farm and start ensuring that the vast land of the north are invested and cultivated on. You have to start pulling people out of poverty as quickly as possible, you have to reduce, aggressively, the cost of governance and deal with the issue of corruption,

The former Anambra governor held that there is a need to remove fuel subsidy and invest the money in critical areas of production.

“There is no reason why our refineries cannot work, there is no reason why we should not encourage private sector to build refineries and operate them, and they are not rocket science, it can be done as quickly as possible, you can today decide to remove fuel subsidy, use the resources to support critical areas of production from critical infrastructure to education to supporting investments in refineries within the shortest possible time.

“What people need to do is to go and look at what I promised as a state governor, when I said I was going to turn around education, health, pull people out of poverty, bring sanity and civility in governance in Anambra state, whether that happened or not.

SECURITY

On his plans to deal with the issue of security, Obi vowed to reorganize Nigeria’s security architecture and ensure that there is multi-level policing.

He added that security operatives must be properly motivated and equipped with the necessary tools to deal with the worsening insecurity in the country.

“What we need to face head-on is the issue of security, because unless you have security, the farmers can’t go back, you can’t attract investments, nobody will want to go to an insecure place, and you can deal with that, you need to do a lot of work, reorganize the security architecture, ensure that there is multi-level policing, the issue of state police has to be decisively dealt with, there so many things you need to do, we need to bring in more personnel into the security system, equip them properly, ensure that they are properly motivated to deal with the issue of security because it’s the most important thing Nigeria needs today”

Speaking further on how he intends to manage the diversity of the country if elected, the LP candidate noted that the challenges facing the country affect both people in the North and South.

He said the country is at the last stages of collapse and needs to choose its next leader based on character, competence, capacity and commitment.

“We have been able to elect people based on ethnicity, religion, ‘my turn’, connection or one form of bias or the other, which brought us to where we are, or structure, which always is a structure of criminality, that we want to dismantle now, and ensure that the next election is based on character, capacity, competence, commitment to do the right thing. Nigeria is now, not just in a physical mess, it’s at the last stage to collapsing, the people in the north don’t have a secured place, they don’t have good roads, they don’t buy bread cheaper than people in the south, so all you hear about ethnicity, religion, connection, ‘my turn’, is elite conspiracy to keep Nigeria underdeveloped, but now we’ve reached the edge, we can no longer continue this way,” Obi maintained.