John Shiklam writes on how presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar and that of the Peoples Redemption Party, Kola Abiola, were grilled at a recent interactive session with northern groups in Kaduna.
The north is in search of a President that will address the challenges facing the region and the country at large.
In the quest to identify the right candidate for the Presidency, leading northern groups namely the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), Northern Elders Forum (NEF), Arewa Research and Development Project (ARDP), Sir Ahmadu Bello Foundation (ABF) and the Jamiyyar Matan Arewa, under the aegis of Joint Northern Group, decided to organise an interactive sessions with presidential candidates.
The interaction, according to NEF spokesman, Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, “is a genuine attempt to get to understand what the candidates have for the North”.
He added that the interactive session “will influence our decisions in terms of who possesses the best ideas, the best thinking”.
The programme was kick started last Saturday at the Arewa House, Kaduna, with three Presidential candidates namely; Kola Abiola, candidate of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP); Prince Adewale Adeboye of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) appearing before the Northern groups.
Three more candidates, including Peter Obi of Labour Party (LP) and Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), also featured on the programme on Monday.
For the candidates it was an opportunity to sell their ideas and canvass for Northern votes.
The region, with its diverse people is very key and any politician desiring to win the presidential election cannot afford to ignore the region.
To the organisers, it was an opportunity to ask those who want to lead Nigeria come 2023 fundamental questions bordering on challenges facing the country.
Kola Abiola of the PRP was the first to unveil his programmes. He spoke on bad economy, unemployment, poverty, insecurity, national unity and how he intends to address them.
His development plan is predicted on a three- point agenda which focused on addressing poverty, insecurity, unemployment and corruption.
He noted that at a point in time he was the largest employer of labour as a private person.
Abiola promised to strengthen the economy and make the country an export oriented hub of Africa.
According to him, it was time the young people who are creative, educated and energetic were allowed to lead in the country. He added that if elected President, he will build on his late father’s democratic values to move the country forward.
His father, MKO Abiola, was the winner of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election, annuled by military president, General Ibrahim Babangida.
Abiola promised to unite Nigerians to live peacefully with one another to promote economic prosperity.
“I will use geographical and regional diversities of Nigeria for strength, unity and purposeful leadership and development”, he said.
Abiola lamented that the country could not get it right in her strive for development after six decades of independence.
He noted the lack of infrastructure and collapse of institutions, stating that he will boost the deficits in infrastructure and make institutions to function.
The 3,000 capacity Hall at the Arewa House was filled to the brim when it was time for the PDP candidate to unveil his own development plans for the country.
Atiku arrived the venue at about 2:30pm after paying a courtesy call on the Emir of Zazzau (Zaria).
Leaders and top notchers of the party stormed the venue in support of their candidate..
Among them were the Vice Presidential candidate and governor of Delta state, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa; National Chairman of the PDP, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu; former Vice President, Namadi Sambo; Governor Aminu Tambwual of Sokoto state; Chief Raymond Dokpesi, some National Assembly and state assembly members, former governors, former ministers and other top chieftains of the party.
Atiku told tge gathering that his agenda is focused on economy and politics based on
five prisms namely to restore Nigeria’s unity, national security, build a dynamic economy for prosperity, improve education delivery and devolve more powers to the states and local government councils.
He said if elected president, he will revolutionise the education system to provide citizens with the appropriate skills and competencies to explore economic opportunities to prosper
“My five point Development agenda is a national agenda, it identifies where we are today and where we want to be as a nation and outlines how we will get there”.
He promised to grow the economy bigger and faster to achieve a GDP of approximately N900 billion by 2030.
This, according to him, will raise Nigeria’s GDP per capita from the current level of approximately 200 to 500, with additional impact on jobs and property.
Questions were asked on how he intends to tackle issues of citizenship – the settler indigene problem, ethnicity, open gazing, the Almajiri issue, functional local government system and the fight against corruption.
Responding to the questions, Atiku said if elected president, his administration will ensure that every Nigerian is given the right to citizenship wherever he or she may decide to live.
Abubakar recalled that during the 1994 conference, “we made a provision for citizenship wherever they live.
“It is a process of nation building. With a responsible leadership that can give every part of this country a sense of belonging, we can achieve nation hood.
“If I win the elections I will form a government of national unity. Peace, unity and stability is pre-requite for a purposeful government that can bring about unity. I believe it is achievable, we should not lose hope on that”, he said.
On the continous fall of the Naira, Atiku said he felt deeply concerned when the value of the naira started going down.
He blamed the ruling APC for the challenges it has brought upon Nigerians adding that now that Nigerians have tested both the PDP and APC, they know which party meant well for them.
His words: “I will correct these challenges that have been brought to us by the APC. When we came in 1999, we lifted the economy virtually from bottom to the top.
“Nigerians said we didn’t know how to do it. Nigerians have now tested PDP and APC.
I believe we have capacity to stabilize the value of the naira. When it started sliding down, I cried and cried again. It is time we match the parallel market with the official rate. But then that has not been done.
“I believe we have the capacity and experience to match the exchange rate to a level where international investors will be comfortable to bring in their money and also Nigerians will be comfortable with the value of their currency”.
Responding to other questions, the former Vice President said the Local Government system can be reinvented to achieve best results.
He said, “When I was Vice President I used to be in charge of Local Governments and directed the ministry of finance to pay all Local governments allocation directly to them.
“The system was going on very well and the Local Governments were functional and later on, I was over ruled and was told that Local Governments funds must go through the states to the so-called joint account.
“From joint account we don’t know where the money went. I believe that it is also something that we can correct.
“When I was growing up, the people that were running the Local Government system were either grade two or three and were running the system effectively and efficiently, very accountable and we were all educated by Local Government.
“There was no oil money, it was only taxation. We can reinvent the local government system and have best results”..
On the problem of ethnicity, Atiku said, “Northerners always think about Nigeria more than other parts of the country. This is simply because we are multi ethnic and multi religious.
There is no any other ethnic group in the south west other than Yoruba, there is no any other ethnic group in the south east other than Igbo.
“That is why they identified themselves as Igbo nation or Yoruba nation. But in the north, you can only identify yourself as a northerner because we are multi ethnic and multi religious”.
He also promised that modern method of livestock would be introduced to make it economically more viable.
“I am a manufacturer of livestock feeds from cattle to poultry. I have more than 1,000 heads of cattle, they have never gone out of one location.
“I had a big quarrel with Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue state on his accusation of Fulani people.
“I said I am Fulani, why should you categorise all fulani? We have to improve ways and manner we look after our livestock”, he said.
Atiku also explained how he intends to tackle the Almajiri issue, noting that, there are about 20 million out of school children in Nigeria.
“I believe we don’t need magic to resolve this problem. What we need is commitment in investment in education,” he said.
He recalled that in 1999, when he became Vice President, “I went to my village, the only primary school which was still standing was the one I attended which was founded in 1954 and it had more than 3000 pupils.
I now went to every of the community and built primary schools, including a science secondary school and handed them to the Local Government.
“The point is that I don’t agree that state and LG don’t have the capacity.
“When we were in office we enacted a law making it compulsory for every child in Nigeria to go to school and it is a responsibility of states and LG to ensure that.
“We also imposed education tax on Nigerians. This education tax is being distributed to the states and LGs every months.
“My father went to prison for not sending me to school. Now, the district head or the village head cannot force you to go to school, the Local Government cannot force you to go to school. They say there is fundamental human rights.
“Since we legislated compulsory education tax why won’t we legislate on compulsory education. So I don’t agree that we don’t have the capacity either in terms of manpower or in terms of funding. We have made the funding available.
Atiku recalled that as Vice President, he summoned all the northern states governors to Arewa House and set up a committee headed by Prof. Adamu Bakie, to find out how the north can catch up with the South.
The PDP flag bearer said the committee spent almost one year going round the states and came up with a blue print.
“I invited all the Northern governors here to Arewa House and handed over the blue print to each governor to go and implement it.
“If they had implemented that blue print we would not be where we are today. I will not be President and seat down and see you do this, I will make you do your work”.
On the fight against corruption, the PDP candidate said issue of corruption is multi-dimensional.
According to him: “When we came into office we had evidence from the investigative bodies of the list of people who stole money and where the money had been kept. So I went to Mr. President and I said if we say we are going to prosecute all these people, we will spend the next 10 years until we leave office, we will not be able to jail them, we will not get the money.
“Then he set up a panel, he made me the chairman, made the attorney general a member.
“We started calling them one by one, and say we have evidence you have stolen money and this is where the money is, return the money and we give you two or five per cent and within a few months we collected $2.8bn.
“Since then no government has been able to recover stolen money and some of the people that we recovered money from have even returned to Nigeria and contested elections, they were in the National Assembly, they are governors and so on and so forth.
“This is one way you can deal with corruption. Another way you can deal with corruption is to make sure that the loopholes that allow public officers to be corrupt are blocked; the loopholes that are in our systems should not allow public officers to steal money.
“You cannot sit down as president and you don’t know what your ministers are doing, what your directors are doing, you don’t know what anybody is doing, it is not possible. Anyway, not with Atiku, maybe with somebody else,” Atiku said.
