After a long period of keeping Nigerians in suspense, Kingsley Moghalu who had earlier declared to run for the 2019 presidential election without announcing the platform under which he would pursue his ambition, on Thursday declared that he was contesting on the platform of the Young Progressive Party (YPP).
Moghalu said he took the decision to join the YPP even when many other political parties have offered to make him their Presidential ticket because its ideologies provide the affirmative answers to the many questions he has about the leadership debacle in Nigeria.
He also said the decision to seek the mandate to be the next Nigerian President on the platform of YPP which is a relatively new party followed “a wide consultation and accumulation of data and information across the country and across a series of hard-nosed operatives, thinkers and doers.”
The former Deputy Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) disclosed this at a press conference and political party declaration ceremony in Abuja, adding that it has become imperative to build a radically different type of leadership in Nigeria.
The 55-year-old public intellectual with international repute, criticised both the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the main opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) for bringing Nigeria to its present social, economic and political doldrums, hence he decided to use a new party that is ideological as well as innovative.
“So I am here today in response to the other parties of the past; in response to umbrellas that block out the light of hope, and brooms that sweep away truth and replaced them with lies and evil propaganda,” he said.
“In response to the parties of tired old tricks and tired old systems and tired old men, I and millions across Nigeria will choose the Young Progressive Party- YPP – the party of today and tomorrow,” the presidential aspirant stated.
He promised to restructure Nigeria along the six geopolitical zones with resource control as the basic component, stressing that the Nigerian economy is in crisis because past leaders have not been innovative enough because of the over reliance on crude oil, which the leaders have abysmally failed to add value to.
Moghalu called on all Nigerians to join hands with him and warned that the people would not be released from the bondage of poverty and insecurity until they rise against the class holding them down.
“We can only be released from it when people from outside that class of old and tired recycled politicians rise against their greed because they have no vision to offer this country other than the quest for power for the sake of power and access to our national treasury,” he said.
He promised that if he becomes president in 2019 he will move Nigeria away from an oil economy to an innovation and knowledge-based economy.
“Under my presidency, we will establish a massive venture capital fund of a minimum capital of N500 billion from the government and most likely another N500 billion from the private sector to invest in the mass production of inventions and in new businesses for young men and women who have no jobs.
“Government does not create jobs, government creates enabling environment in which the private sector will create jobs. I have the intellectual power and the practical experience to make it happen,” he noted.
The Anambra born political economics, graduated with a law degree in 1986 from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and at the Nigerian law school in Lagos 1987.
He subsequently obtained an M.A. degree at the Fletcher School of Law of Diplomacy at Tufts University, and later obtained a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) at the university of London UK, and the International Certificate in Risk Management from the Institute of Risk Management (IRM) in London.
Moghalu joined the United Nations in 1992 his first assignment was in Cambodia as a UN human rights and elections officer with the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC). A year later, he was appointed political affairs officer in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations at the UN Headquarters in New York. From 1996 to 1997, he served in the former Yugoslavia as political advisor to the special representative of the UN Secretary-General in Croatia.
He joined the central bank in 2009 and served as the Deputy Governor of the bank for Financial Stability, he led the implementation of far-reaching reforms in Nigeria’s banking sector after a combination of the global financial crisis, corporate governance abuses and weak risk management left one third of Nigerian banks on the edge of collapse while also later serving as Deputy Governor for Operations till 2014 when he left.
Innocent Odoh and James Kwen Abuja, Iniobong Iwok, Lagos
