In three days’ time, we will have the unique opportunity to make a choice, a very important choice! It is not a choice between APC and PDP or really between PMB and AA as individuals. It is a choice for ourselves, for our children, for our unborn children and generations to come. It is a choice for Nigeria! A serious choice that will determine the continued survival and existence of about 200 million people! It should be a genuine choice, a right one that will be liked by majority of Nigerians and non- Nigerians for its ability to effectively galvanize the private sector and create the appropriate business environment to attract most needed investment to create jobs for our 21 million unemployed brethren!
That will help lift over 80 million Nigerians out of extreme poverty and provide the urgently needed infrastructure, electricity, improved health and educational system for all and sundry. We need to appreciate that the choice we are required to make on Saturday February 16th 2019 is a privileged one! An honor and right to elect the frontrunner that will unite our most divided nation, a leader that will lead us in peace and prosperity ensuring that every Nigerian irrespective of religion, sex, culture and tribe is able and supported to live and achieve his full potential for personal and national growth. It is a choice to elect a leader that will rekindle national spirit and lasting patriotism.
To meet our individual and national aspirations as identified above, we need a leader who genuinely understands that a key pre- requisite for success is the need for deep appreciation of our multi-varied differences and peculiarities- cultural, religious, economic and geographical. And that as a very plural society which we are, that these differences and peculiarities can effectively limit or enhance our national/individual growth and development depending on the way they are understood and utilized. As our national progress and success as a nation should expectedly be our leader’s main intrinsic and instrumental priority, the task before us therefore is to elect that leader with good understanding of effective multi-stakeholders management and strategies to govern and harness the inherent potentials and capabilities of a plural society.
With a realistic assessment of our socio-economic, cultural and political trajectories, the options we have at the moment are PMB and AA. They are neither the best candidates that Northern Nigeria can offer, nor the messiahs that other regions of Nigeria are waiting for but they are the options we have and we need to elect one of them. As they have offered themselves with a presumed genuine disposition and desire for a better Nigeria, it is then left for us who are privileged to vote to passionately and patriotically examine their respective advocated salvific strategies for a better and prosperous plural Nigeria.
PMB from statements, actions and inactions has consistently demonstrated his preference for a united and prosperous Nigeria under a strong federal government. Using this approach for about 4 years now and focusing on three key areas- corruption, insecurity and economy, it is difficult to be convinced that the strategy is widely working or the best for the sustainable and inclusive development of a plural society as Nigeria. While corruption at the federal level seems to have gone down, it remains pervasive across other tiers of government and the wider Nigerian society. On insecurity, the key challenge Boko Haram has been significantly tackled but other forms of insecurity including ones even similar to damages and savages of Boko Haram seem to be spreading. Of the three focus areas, PMB has performed worst in the effective management of the economy. Of all the key economic variables, none seems to have improved beyond the 2015 levels. Not only have they not improved, majority have significantly worsened. These include GDP, FDI, unemployment, capital market, poverty index, inequality, banks credit to the private sector as a percentage of the GDP and HDI.
In assessing PMB government, his greatest undoing is the inflexibility of the government to listen to alternative views especially on how our plurality impedes our sustainable economic growth and development. This relates to the overwhelmingconcern, demand and agreement that key to our socio-economic, cultural and political progress is the urgent need to restructure Nigeria. Not only has PMB rejected the wise counsel, he has through some of his policies and actions demonstrated lamentable insensitivity to our plurality. With his assumed integrity and incorruptibility, all that would have been required to make PMB a very easy sell to all regions and segments of Nigeria is a little flexibility and acceptance of alternative but wise views on our socio-cultural and economic peculiarities and then minor remorse on some of his flawed actions and decisions.
AA on the other hand seems more amenable to advice and alternative views. Assessing his actions and inactions since 1999 to date shows a man who is flexible and somehow remorseful for past misdeeds and willing to make amends. This is the reason why consistent accusations of being corrupt has had little effect on his acceptance and popularity. Further affirming his flexibility and willingness to change is his recent consistent advocacy and support for restructuring of Nigeria. Whether it is a strategy to enhance his acceptance or not, his open acceptance and support for it has placed him at a vantage position of a man who is more cosmopolitan, engaging and sensitive to our peculiarities and plurality. In addition, with his private enterprises and discussion of economic issues, he comes across as a man who understands what it takes to galvanize the private sector and attract FDI to create jobs, reduce poverty rate and enhance our growth and development.
Fortunately, as democracy gives us the power to periodically elect that leader who will deeply understand our multi-varied differences and peculiarities to formulate and execute appropriate strategies to lead us to sustainable and inclusive growth and development, I most passionately implore my fellow Nigerians to be guided by love and utmost patriotism as they vote on Saturday! Our future and that of our children and unborn generations is our hands.
Dr. Ngwu is a Senior Lecturer in Strategy, Finance and Risk Management, Lagos Business School and a Member, Expert Network, World Economic Forum.
Franklin Nnaemeka Ngwu (PhD)
