Stephen Ukandu, Umuahia
Elder statesman and chieftain of Northern Elders Council, Professor Ango Abdullahi, has given his assessment of presidential flag bearers of major political parties ahead of the 2023 elections, dismissing the two frontline candidates as lacking the capacity to fix Nigeria.
The former Vice Chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, unequivocally declared the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Ahmed Tinubu; and his Peoples Democratic, Party, PDP, counterpart, Atiku Abubakar, unfit to take Nigeria out of the woods.
According to him, the two have been part of the system and have nothing new to offer, hence, Nigerians should not waste their votes on them.
The vocal elder statesman, however, noted that Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party, NNPP, “is good and smart,” but expressed concern that he incurred some debts even though he failed to give details.
On Peter Obi of the Labour Party, Abdullahi said, “he is young and a businessman,” although he claimed not to have known much about the former Anambra State Governor.
He expressed dissatisfaction over the quality of presidential flag bearers fielded by various political parties for the 2023 poll, wondering if they have the magic wand to turn things around for the country.
According to him, “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 arrangement 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.
“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.
He regretted that the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, could not clinch the APC presidential ticket, saying the political system worked against him.
“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.”
He said that “Nigeria is in trouble”, and suggested that “we need to go back to the drawing board” to see what could be done to move the country forward.
“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.”
