Ighodalo Calls for Free, Fair Elections, Condemns Vote-buying, Violence
Ugo Aliogo
Ahead of the elections, the Chairman of the Africa Leadership Group (ALG), Pastor Ituah Ighodalo, has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to ensure the conduct of a free, fair and credible election, devoid of vote buying, violence and all forms of criminalities.
He stated that Nigerians cannot afford to get it wrong this time, urging the electorate to carefully select leaders fit for purpose at this time, “who can lead the country out of the national crisis, facing it.”
Ighodalo, who said disclosed this yesterday, in Lagos, at the launch of the ALG Leadership Assessment Tool, urged Nigerians to maintain peace, use their voices and votes wisely, evaluating all political candidates against clear principles and qualities of strong leadership.
He further explained that with less than 14 days to the general election, acrimony among the major political parties continues to rise, “and frustration with the nation’s leaders is growing as Nigerians experience severe shortages of fuel and the redesigned bank notes, resulting in public disturbances and riots. throughout the country.”
He revealed that according to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, “Leadership and governance are the biggest problems of Africa today. Nigeria needs a leader with character, competence, compassion, love, one who has the common good of the people at heart, the fear of God and is dedicated to prayer.”
The clergy man further stated that Nigeria was at risk of becoming a failed state due to decades of worsening leadership, poor governance, and endemic corruption, noting that the already fragile fault lines borne from ethno-religious conflicts have escalated.
He lamented that the polity has worsened with banditry, kidnapping and terrorism, further contributing to national insecurity.
According to him, “Well, at some stage, the African Leadership Group will come up with the name of the candidate. But we want to go through our process like we said, we have our leadership forms which we are distributing to our members, which we are asking them to score, and when they score, they collate, if we will test them according to our scientific analysis among our members, we will choose the person that it is pointing to.
“We are going through our criteria now and getting our members to collate this and sum it up and then we will see according to what we have done scientifically amongst ourselves, using this foreign pattern and this criterion, the person that we think we should vote for, and that is our opinion as African Leadership Group stage of our national development.”
