Abdulraheem: My Main Focus is to Bring Comfort to Abused Population in Kwara

Shortly after  the  February 25 election,  Kwara New Nigeria People’s Party governorship candidate, Prof. Shuaib Oba Abdulraheem, spoke with Hammed Shittu in Ilorin on wide range of issues, including his main focus if elected governor in Saturday’s election. Excerpts:

How will you assess the Presidential/National Assembly Polls in the country?

The presidential election is generally peaceful but not flawless. There is need for a lot more synergy between the parties and electoral body, that is INEC. It appears that either artificial or man-made distance has been created among them, to the extent that such parties like mine, NNPP stand disadvantaged. 

As a result of poor or insincere communication between the party and INEC, the issue of the logo of NNPP on ballot paper is a very controversial one and should be resolved very soon. INEC printed the logo of the party, with fruit basket but the color separation is absent, so if you look at the party’s ballot, it appears in a dark-brown color, both fruits and the basket. It takes a lot of effort of the eye to identify which is the basket and which is the fruit. If this appears to ordinary Nigerians, who are of average or little education, it will pose a challenge. I have a very peculiar instance where an electoral officer denied a voter from my party to the right to vote. Some other voters from that unit were denied the opportunity to vote, because, they said that there is no NNPP written on the ballot paper, even though there is something that supposed to be the symbol of the party. This act completely disenfranchised a lot of people due to irresponsible conduct of the electoral officers in that polling unit. There are no basis telling people, if the voters identifies the logo of their party, whether there is a name or not, both name and logo are means of identity. Simply because NNPP is not written against the logo, people were denied opportunity to vote. 

In view of this discrepancies that accompanied the last polls, what are your expectations from the INEC in the forthcoming election?

The next election should not follow the same method, INEC and the party need to sit down and find a way of correcting the mistake. They can really disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of people.

The sing song on the lips of Nigerians this day  is the issue of hunger, how do you think incoming political leaders can address it?

Hunger and poverty are twin brothers and the combination produces insecurity. If the government that promises to resolve all these problems after many years could not do any of these things till now, then, there is a need for a roundtable conference. I urged all leaders of Nigeria, who have the heart of Nigeria at heart to handle the issue. 

What kind of President should Nigerians expect after the winner emerges?

Whoever emerge as the winner of the 2023 (presidential) elections cannot jubilate that his party has won, rather,  it is the victory of all Nigerians and then, all parties involved must be called to a roundtable to discuss on how to restructure Nigeria and how to produce an environment that is conducive for Nigerians. 

What is your take on the omission of NNPP’s name on the ballot paper and faded logo in the just concluded presidential polls in Kwara state?

On the issue of omission of NNPP on the ballot paper and faded logo, we are appealing to our supporters to remain calm and hope that common sense will prevail. We have tendered our case to the authority, that is, INEC and we hope that it will be corrected. Apart from the logo, INEC asked us to send names of agents and we submitted their names and passport photographs, but what they returned to us were blank laminated papers, without pictures, as well as wrong polling units and wrong names of agents. It is very rampant in Kwara, where they sent tags without the photograph of our agents, tags attached to wrong polling units and even given tags to agents that did not belong to NNPP.

The engine of election machinery is the job of the agents and if the agents is not identified, then they are giving room for corruption. Also, the illegal intervention of the security personnel, who are not supposed to be beside a voter while casting his or her vote. Some of the security personnel moved closed to where the ballot boxes were placed and were identifying and removing persons who were supposed to be agents. They don’t need to intervene, rather, they should allow it to be resolved by electoral officers at the polling units. We have cases of security personnel, which is not supposed to be.

The highest authority of the security should talk to their people on operations and let them know that their job is to maintain peace and not to interfere in identifying or not identifying voters.

As the governorship candidate of NNPP in Kwara state, what will be your main priority if given the mandate by the electorate?

My interest in politics is not for love of money, but to bring comfort, succor to a very abused population, who have been ruled by irresponsible people over the years, who have made them poor and have not made provision for the future of their children, as well as neglected the youths and made them thugs and vagabonds. My first focus is to bring good governance, through zero tolerance to corruption. With this, there will be sufficient resources to go round and in managing the other areas of administration. The total welfare of the people is the number one responsibility that I want to shoulde, then remove the opportunity for persons who are not patriotic to exploit the people.

We will also focus on restructuring the state education facilities, not just renovating classroom areas, rebranding infrastructure which was a means of corruption but to rebuild and restructure the education curriculum, so that it can give functional education to our children.

Are you not threatened by the power of incumbency in the forthcoming election in the state?

Everybody can sit and say that they will not leave, but the people that brought you in can always send you out, so I am not afraid of incumbency factor, because I trust the commitment, intelligence of the average Kwara voter, because they know what they have experienced over the past years and know what the future holds for the next six months, if urgent change is not made. So whoever is sitting down and depending of incumbency as an instrument of continuation of unpopular administration is doing so at his own risk. I am committed to the vision and determination to get good governance.