-  Advises old politicians to quit stage         Â
By Oghenevwede Ohwovoriole in Abuja
A presidential aspirant under the platform of the National Rescue Movement Party of Nigeria (NRMPN), Mr. Usman Ibrahim Alhaji, has scored President Muhammadu Buhari low in the fight against corruption and advised him to strengthen institutions to fight corruption, adding that the government cannot fight corruption without strong structures.
He also urged the old politicians to quite the stage for the younger ones.
“Sincerely, if I am to assess the present administration on fighting corruption I’ll only give them 40 per cent. My reason is that we cannot fight corruption without strengthening the institutions’’, he stated in an exclusive interview with THISDAY in Abuja.
‘’You have to strengthen the judicial institution, the Police that are prosecuting and you have to also strengthen the media to give you investigative journalism; because the media has a great role to play in reporting corruption cases.’’
An indigene of Marafakka, Kalgo Local Government area of Kebbi State and graduate of Bayero University Kano, Alhaji, stated that Nigerians are looking for a generational change in the leadership of the country as the current crop of leaders are between 70 and 80 years.
He said when he was growing up he was told that they were the leaders of tomorrow, but said that till date, ‘’tomorrow’’ had not come.
According to him, “We are looking for generational change; when you look at the leaders we have today most of them are around 70 and 80 years; and when we were young they always say we were the leaders of tomorrow; and we don’t know when the tomorrow will come.
‘’This gave us courage to ask them that haven’t invested so much in us, by going to school and teaching us how to fish, now is the time to allow us to demonstrate the skills we have learnt and they can stand somewhere and correct us when we go wrong.â€
Reflecting on the state of the nation, he added that there are some politicians who want to divide the country for their own selfish political and economic interests, saying the huge poverty in Nigeria today does not know whether ‘’you are a Christian or a Muslim.’’
He asked, ‘’Does poverty know tribe?; it is a strategy by the politicians; and that is why we are telling them to go and sit down and lets inject new blood and then we move forward.’’
According to Alhaji, the lack of positive impact of democracy on the citizenry and the failure of the two dominant political parties gave him the motivation to come out to vie for the office of the president of Nigeria.
“The two dominant parties have failed this country. That is one convention, and I believe Nigerians have good memories and they are now saying neither PDP nor APC and what Nigerians want now is rescue and that what the National Rescue Movement Party is out to do’’, he explained.
‘’This party is going to move faster than anybody’s expectations; the other reason the country is failing is lack of positive impact of democracy on the citizenry for the past 19 years. So, we felt that it may be because the old players are doing the same thing over and over again; and that there is need to inject new blood into the system, so that Nigerians will see some changes.’’
On the issue of power devolution and restructuring, Alhaji said that power and resources will be returned to the local councils for things to be better if his party wins the 2019 presidential election and make sure it fixes the issue of electricity in the country; set the country on the part of industrialisation and reduce insecurity.
He added, “We will return power and resources to the local governments. We believe that a lot of jobs and works will go back to the local councils and things will be better. While in the long run, we tackle the issue of electricity in this country headlong, and we believe that if we are able to surmount the problem of electricity it will give rise to industrialisation.’’
