Emameh Gabriel examines the issues raised by four presidential candidates at the second edition of Arise TV Town Hall Meeting
The second series of the Arise TV Presidential Town Hall Meeting took place at the weekend where another four presidential candidates sat on the hot seat and took their turn to respond to questions from the panelists, and indeed Nigerians of diverse interests at Transcop Hilton, Abuja.
The candidates, who participated in the second edition after the maiden edition held last week were OmoyeleSowore of African Action Congress, Prince Adewale Adebayo of the Social Democratic Party, YabagiSani of Action Democratic Party and Prof Peter Umeadi of the All Progressive Grand Alliance
The conversation was divided into two discussion segments; there was security segment and questions and answers session, followed by economic questions for the four candidates who were conscious of the fact that the 2023 election campaign would be anchored on nation’s economy and security which is becoming increasingly important to journalists, activists, and citizens who police election processes to give the electorate policy insights.
OMOYELE SOWORE
The AAC presidential candidate was on top of his game on Sunday night when he reeled out figures and proposed three major approaches to solving insecurity in the country, which include enforcement, intelligence processing and gathering and addressing the problem of inequality.
He said the country currently run “a rogue system of security in which everybody is doing what they like. And all the elements within government use whichever security agencies they have to carry out their own nefarious activities sabotaging your Nigeria”.
According to him: “One is the use of enforcement. The second aspect of it is a collection of intelligence, analysis of intelligence and execution of intelligence. But you can only collect intelligence if you have intelligent people running intelligence organizations.
“We must state categorically before I analyze what I’ll do about this that Nigeria has to resolve the problem of inequality. Before we can be talking about using guns, it has been known that countries that are doing well economically rarely use guns, because their citizens are happy.
The attacks in the country was not limited to the north alone but widespread, lamented Sowore who promised that his administration would ensure a new constitution is evolved to include state police and address other important issues missing in the present 1999 constitution as amended.
He argued that the current Nigerian constitution is a fraudulently imposed document on the people by the military, adding that Nigerians could only be united if foundational problems in the constitution were addressed.
According to him, “In 1992, we gathered – Mike Ozokheme, GaniFahwehinmi and others; we wanted to have a sovereign national conference, because we were tired of the Nigerian constitution, the military sent soldiers to come and beat the living daylight out of us. In 2023, we need a new constitution. We cannot continue like this”.
He said to unite the country, there must be deliberate effort to address the problem from the foundation.
His words: “This is a country put together by outsiders. We never got it right from the beginning. What’s going to unite Nigeria is a new constitution. People must find identity in that document, they must know, where they belong, they must have a right exit, for example, a bad marriage. You can’t force people together by creating ministries that do orientation; you do it by way of justice.
“On State police, I will let Nigeria create its own constitution that’s not a fraudulent document as we have now. It will address the issue of state police, and local government police. When we do this, we can train all of them in a unified way devoid of governors’ control”.
Commenting over Nigeria’s rising debt profile, the AAC presidential candidate, stressed the need to stop unnecessary waste. He promised to scrap the senate and end security votes and channel the resources to the education sector.
“I want to also inform you that what we call security votes in Nigeria is one of the things I will like to abolish so that N271 billion that goes to governors will stop. I don’t know who they are protecting with it.“We must discuss our revenue, what we waste money on. I will abolish the senate so that we can use that money to take care of the education. I will stop investing in irrelevant things, I won’t a spend a dime on pilgrimage.”
Sowore claimed that if the about $6.4 billion in taxes unpaid to the federal government are paid, the country has no business going to China to collect loan.
His words: “Our debt to GDP ratio is not out of control, our problem is revenue to GDP. It’s because we don’t capture our revenues appropriately. The oil companies are owing about $6.4 billion in taxes unpaid to the federal government”.
On energy, oil and gas, the activist, advised government to focus on energy, particularly, investing in energy mixes, including solar, hydro, bio Fuel.
He said: “The energy transition we need to make, specifically, in four years, my target is to get us away from this miserable seven thousand megawatts of which we can only supply about 3000. Transmission lines are so broken even when we have production, we can’t transmit. I’m going to use gas money to start this investment.
“Where I will go precisely is the NLNG. Nigeria is an investor in that company and it’s doing well. Out of the 49 per cent we have, they are giving the money to the NNPCL, not to consolidated account of the federal government.
“I want to take that percentage of our dividends and start investing it in energy mixes, including Solar, Hydro, Bio Fuel and so on and use these mixes to create both employments in four months. I also want to break the national grid. There’s no need for someone to be producing electricity in Lagos and to go first to NBET before they can be served.
“I know and I have seen that oil is a product of the past. The rest of the world have moved on, they are creating vehicles, they use solar. Sunshine, water, excreta will never go away, wastes can be used to generate electricity. So, for you to have a vision for Nigeria without oil. You must understand that oil is going out of business and energy transition has already occurred.
“On Imports reduction, I won’t invest in the past. Building steel industries that don’t produce steel, when you don’t have electricity. The most important industry we should be thinking about is the human brain – human capital development – that’s where the industry that brings most money is.”
ADEWALE ADEBAYO
He showed a different strength and prowess.
The SDP presidential candidate started by blaming
the insecurity challenge in the country on the weak and compromised security architecture.
He however, did not waste time to present his plans to address the menace.
According to him: “We have the wrong architecture to enforce security. When you put politicians in charge of security, they are only interested in sharing money and not security.
“The military, for fear of the police taking over power from them, weakened the police and the military also weakened the air force, which has reduce our capabilities in the air. Then the civilians, for fear of being overthrown by military, weakened the military.”
Commenting more on insecurity, Adebayo said, “It starts from the villa, insecurity in the country starts from the villa, don’t bring politicians to manage security, because they will fight over who will manage money and not security.
“As Commander-in-Chief, I will stop using security agencies to solve political problems.”
On state police, he said, “It is not in the interest of those in government to create effective policing, because if they do, many of them in government today will be in jail.”
On how he hoped to solve Nigeria’s economic problems, Adebayo said, “What I would do is to attract investment and I will not invite the Russians back to work on Ajaokuta steel company. I will work on agriculture and agro allied industries so that Nigerians can feed themselves and other governments will build the steel industry.”
Speaking on Nigeria’s energy problem without oil and gas, he said, “We can generate 100 megawatts of electricity without collecting any money from the government.”
Adebayo was not only clever but also showed that he was well equiped with the economic history of the country when asked what was his vision for Nigeria without oil.
“There was a Nigeria without oil before and we were progressing, I will use the oil money to develop the economy and plan for the future without oil. We have been mismanaging our resources, we must have a CBN (Central Bank of Nigeria) that is in control of monetary policy”, he said.
On the proposed idea for a new constitution by Mike Ozekhome, Adebayo said, “though the Nigerian constitution is not perfect, we can always make room for improvement just like the constitution of the United States and that of the United Kingdom.”
On the issue of Nigeria’s unity, he said: “Weaponisation of our religion is the cause of our disunity, and leaders must have the ability to manage our diversity. They have refused to manage our diversity, because it benefits them.”
YABAGI SANI
Like others before him, Yabagi took his turn to identify the rule of law, as the solution to Nigeria’s insecurity, corruption and poverty.
His position disapproved of regional security outfits, which he said were products of frustrations from the affected regions.
He posited that “Insecurity will persists if our leaders continue the arbitrary management of the economy. Insecurity can be traced to the
types of government we’ve had in the past. There has never been any standard policy of fighting insecurity in Nigeria and this is not good for the country.
“There is need to have rule of law to avoid nepotism and corruption. No matter how effective, a government may be in fighting insecurity, when people are feeling marginalised, the security personnel would not exhibit a sense of patriotism. The security personnel would not have a sense of belonging, when the leadership of security agencies is lopsided, with everyone coming from the same geopolitical zone.
“I will govern with the rule of law and ensure that nobody is above the law. The security agencies would work in a way and manner that they will gather intelligence. I will encourage intelligence gathering, because the security and military personnel needed to work with information freely and happily given to them.”
Sani noted that insecurity could not be separated from poverty and corruption, and therefore stressed the need to appoint capable hands in the various key positions, faulting a situation, where the president would be in charge of the Petroleum Ministry.
His words: “It is not necessary for the president to be directly in charge of a particular ministry. He is supposed to be in charge of all the ministries. He is supposed to have managers, people that are experts with excellent records.
“All the ministers are exercising the powers of the president, which had been delegated to them. I will put the right people in the right places and ensure that they are effectively monitored so that people would feel the impact of government.
“As the Chief Security Officer of the Country, I will not allow a situation, where regional police are formed out frustrations and not as the need to have it as a nation. I will allow the National Assembly to do its job whenever the need arises. They should do the needful.
“It is the National Assembly that would determine whether the issue of security should be on the concurrent or on the exclusive legislative list. If security agencies are formed out of frustrations they would be fighting the national security outfits.”
On gender based issue, Sani said his government would work with the national assembly to ensure that the affirmative action bill is passed into law.
His words: “I will work with the National Assembly to make sure that more female are elected into the legislature and they would address the issue of gender imbalance.”
Sani pledged to develop agriculture, artificial intelligence, tourism and information technology as alternative to revenue from oil and gas.
“We need to boost the agricultural sector, which is the main stay of the nation’s economy. We will look inward by addressing the issue of corruption. We would look at where we have comparative advantage. We would develop agriculture, steel and education.
“Infrastructure development is key to any economy. We can’t go and be borrowing. I will maximize the natural resources of the country to create wealth for the people. We will build more industries and resuscitate the moribund ones.
“We will develop a study that would enable us to take advantage of continental and regional financial supporting fiscal mechanism. The mineral resources and other areas, where we have comparative advantage will also be explored to meet the country’s energy need without oil and gas. Willing partners to develop renewable energy.
“We have the resources to tap into the renewable energy. We can solve the problems when we get our acts together. It will take a long time but we’ll get there. We have what it takes to develop technology that’s not using oil and gas.“We have young, dynamic population that could use their brains to turn things around. I will discover the talents. We will develop tourism. We will make the National Assembly to be alive to it’s responsibility.”
PETER UMEADI
The APGA presidential candidate was slow but precise in his presentations. A strong advocate of devolution of power and state police, he promised that if elected, he would work to create state police to help tackle insecurity in the country.
“I support the creation of state police by amending the country’s constitution,” he said, promising to support the establishment of local vigilante group to deal with insecurity in rural areas.
He also recommended the inclusion of military training for the NYSC members as part of his strategy to equip citizens with knowledge of self defence.
“I am going to monitor the situation and getting the information on security on second by second basis. As president I will always respond promptly to any security report of criminal attacks,” Umeadi said.
He explained that, the present insecurity challenge, has to do with the security architecture, which needed to be addressed.
On how he will address the security situation in the country, Umeadi said he would provide a system where federal character will guide the appointment of head of security agencies in the country.
On economy, he said his government would seek to explore the potentials on the country’s natural resource, while his administration would focus on education and skill acquisition.
His vision to invest more in housing development, and education with emphasis on building skills acquisition centres across the country to create employment was also captured in his presentation.
On how to earn more revenue to be able to offset the huge debt profile, Umeadi said his government would seek to widen the tax net and set up template for proper taxation.
Analysis of the second Town Hall meeting has shown the potentials of the candidates and their policies to tackle insecurity and revive the nation’s ailing economy. This was attested to by constitutional lawyer, Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN), who expressed confidence in the ideas of the candidates saying the winner of the presidential election next year will be doing the country a great harm if he fails to recruit any of them into the new government.
Ozekhome had during the questions and answers segment, raised constitutional question which called for a total overhaul of the existing constitution in making Nigeria workable, prosperous and peaceful- a question that was well addressed by the candidates and even exposed their graps of constitutional issues.
The candidates took their turn to analyse their approach to solving the economic and insecurity challenges facing the country. These were all anchored on the fight against corruption among security agencies, nepotism, inequality in the system, porous borders, infrastructure, education and modern approach to explore the entire agriculture value chain.
However, there were divided opinions on the issues of state police and local vigilante to substitute the existing status quo at the state.
Just like Ozekhome and other respondents said, the engagement was an eye opener, which millions of Nigerians have learnt a lot from. But the question is, in a society where debates are no longer seen as yardstick to measure the quality of individuals seeking political office, then how can this conversation influence or change the voting pattern among the electorate?
