Peter Obi: Nigeria at a point of collapse

The presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, has said the election of leaders based on ethnicity, religion, and strong connection, among others, brought Nigerians to the bad situation they are in today.

Obi said the 2023 general election should be based on capacity, competence, and commitment to do the right thing, noting that the country is at the last stage to collapse.

The former governor of Anambra State said this in an interview with CNN.

He said: “In the past, we used to elect leaders based on ethnicity, religion, strong connection etc, and that has brought us to the bad situation we are in today.

“Our structure, the structure of criminality, is what we want to dismantle now. We want to ensure that the next election is based on character, capacity, competence, commitment to do the right thing. Nigeria not just in a fiscal mess, it is at the last stage to collapse.

“The people in the North don’t have a secure place, they don’t have good roads. They don’t buy bread cheaper than those in the South. They people in the South are facing the same issues. All what you hear about ethnicity, religion, connection, is an elite conspiracy to keep Nigeria undeveloped. But now we’ve reached the edge.”

Obi, when asked about his plans to tackle the challenges bedevilling the country, including corruption, oil theft, and insecurity, said: “If you have a leader that is competent, has the capacity and commitment to start dealing with these challenges, you’re not going to solve it overnight, but there will be a clear, visible, measurable attempt to deal with these.

“And there is nothing that is not solve-able. Some issues just have to be dealt with decisively. But you need to have a capable leader such that when you look at his past records in office, you can say yes, he is capable.

“A variety of things. One, is that we have to deal decisively with the issue of insecurity. It’s impacting negatively on our economy. We have to deal with it head on. We have to get our finances right – and start ensuring that the vast lands of the north are invested in and cultivated.

“We have to start pulling people out of poverty as quickly as possible. We have to immediately reduce aggressively, the cost of governance, and the issue of corruption,” the LP presidential candidate stated.

Speaking on the importation of refined fuel by Nigeria despite being the Africa’s largest oil producer, Obi said his government would support private sector to operate refineries in the country, adding that he would consider removing the fuel subsidy.

“It’s not the issue of refineries not working; there’s no reason why we should not encourage the private sector to operate refineries. It can be done as quickly as possible.

“We can today, decide to remove the oil subsidies, and use the resources to invest in and support the principal areas of production; from critical infrastructure to education, to supporting investment in refinery, which will be, done in the shortest amount of time,” the former governor said.

Stressing that his government would not act on failed promises, Obi said: “What people need to do is to look at what I promised as the state governor. When I said was going to turn around education, health, pull people out of poverty, bring sanity and civility in governance – did that happen or not?

“When I said we were going to save money, did we do that? Yes, we did,” he stated.

On the lingering insecurity in the country, the LP presidential standard-bearer said his administration would tackle the menace by first reorganising Nigeria’s security architecture.

“Initially, what we first have to deal with is the issue of security. Unless you have security, the farmers can’t – you can’t have investment. Nobody will ever want to put or invest money in an insecure country. So we will deal this issue of insecurity decisively.

“We will start by reorganising our security architecture. We will then bring in more hands into the security system, and motivate them properly, so that we can defeat the issue of insecurity. It’s the most important thing that Nigeria needs today,” Peter Obi said.

The Star

Segun Ojo