Serial Leadership Failures Fuel Insecurity, Other National Woes, Says Obi

Emmanuel Ugwu-Nwogo


Frontline presidential aspirant on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr Peter Obi, has said that the serial leadership failures in Nigeria are responsible for the intractable security problems and other woes rocking the nation.

He stated this Thursday while addressing Abia State PDP delegates in Umuahia, saying that there was an urgent need to arrest the drift, otherwise things would keep getting worse.

The former Anambra State governor noted that Nigeria has been a victim of bad governance, churning out bad development indices that are antithesis to its huge resources and potentials.

Using statistics, Obi pointed out that 98 million Nigerians are living under poverty and not sure of food, while the number of unemployed persons accounts for 35% of the population.

The presidential aspirant said that it remains a sad story that Nigeria has 15 million out-of-school children, just as the county’s debt profile, which as at 2017 stood at about N57 trillion, has kept piling up and might have hit between N135-140 trillion.

Worse still, Obi said that Nigeria’s huge debts cannot be repaid since they were incurred “for consumption and not production”, adding that over 90 per cent of the revenue were being used to service the debts.

Despite the numbing national woes, the former two-term governor assured Nigerians that he could fix Nigeria if given the chance to pilot the affairs of the nation.

“I know the problems of this country and how to solve them, including insecurity,” he declared.

For instantce, he explained that insecurity could be addressed with massive employment whereby people must have means of legitimate livelihood, adding that: “We must change from consumption to production.”

Obi gave a timeline of four years within which he would get Nigeria on its feet and steady it on the path of progress, peace, stability and sustained growth.

A member of Obi’s entourage and former presidential aspirant, Dr Doyin Okupe, had earlier in his remarks said that the former Anambra governor remains the best option for Nigeria come 2023.

He therefore urged Nigerians to give their mandate to Obi as the next president, noting that his antecedents were proof that he was ordained by God to lead Nigeria.

“I withdrew from the race to give Obi the chance,” he said, adding that PDP is lucky because with Obi, it stands the chance to defeat the APC federal government, which according to him, is bereft of ideas and has nothing more to offer Nigeria.

“Nigeria must elect a person like Peter Obi. Obi is the champion of all the presidential aspirants, having in addition to other qualifications, acquired knowledge from the four corners of the globe,” Okupe said.