Mailafia Emerges ADC Presidential Candidate

*Party Positions for Victory in 2019

By Nseobong Okon-Ekong
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has announced Dr. Obadiah Mailafia as the party’s ppresidential candidate for the 2019 election.

The Chief Returning Officer, Alhaji Said Baba Abdullahi, announced this during the National Convention of the party, held at M&M Event Centre, International Conference Centre, Abuja.

After announcing the figure, he asked delegates to affirm Dr. Mailafia as the party’s candidate for the 2019 Presidential elections.

Obadiah polled 2,860 votes against Mrs. Saidat Odofin, who polled 1,310.
Elated Mailafia commended Odofin for her resilience and passion for desiring a change in Nigeria, which he said was her driving force.

The presidential candidate, a former Deputy Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria, expressed optimism that, if elected, he would implement various economic policies that would help to grow the Nigerian economy.

Mailafia said, “We need to focus on implementation. This country is not short of ideas and we have several economic documents, the current one is the National Economic Recovery Document, 2017 to 2020. It is very solid and well written.

“I will engage in rigorous implementation of these policies and also engage policy analysts that are conversant with daily happenings in various sectors of the economy.’’
This, he said, would help government to identify lapses and enforce adequate actions that would yield immediate result.

“What we need is action, focus, accountability, monitoring and taking action based on this, which ADC will deliver to the people. This is what we need to move the economy forward,’’ he said.

The National Chairman, ADC, Chief Ralphs Nwosu, noted that the conduct of the primaries, which was free of vote buying, had proved the position of ADC as a model sustainable political party.

He said Obadiah had emerged through a free and fair election and called for the support of members to make the journey to Aso Villa a reality.

Nwosu said, “ADC is poised to bring peace and development to the country by ensuring that we don’t do stupid things with our economy. Things like fuel importation, which costs us a whopping $1.5 billion monthly and putting immense pressure on our naira; like mismanaging an economy that earns, as at today, N21 trillion annually, out which the Federal Government earns about N8.4 trillion but spends N6.4 trillion on fuel importation.

“Our great party will encourage all 774 local governments in Nigeria to go into generating 30MW of power from either of solar, wind, hydro, gas, coal, waste dumpsites, among others. 23,220MW of embedded power generation will drive innovation and industrialisation. Jobs will be created, people will earn a living and the ADC will pull Nigerians out of poverty.”