Interview session with Peter Obi
In a live interview session with Adeola Fayehun on Tuesday, Mr. Peter Obi said that he is not ready to fail both on his quest to become the next president of Nigeria and in proffering hope of a better nation to the Nigerian youths.
“I will not use my energy, my time, my resources to run round the world to fail because I pray to God every day and say, do not allow me to disappoint these young Nigerians that have put their fate in me”.
This, he said amongst a host of other discourses with the political satirist journalist, Adeola Fayehun who questioned him on his mandate and the structure he has for the nation.
The Labour Presidential candidate, however, highlighted some sensitive issues that are affecting Nigeria and how such issues can be ameliorated.
Here are the highlights:
On tech, he says, “Nigerian youths are not lazy people they are one of the best, hardworking, and talented people in the world; if directed very well, the same talents, the same energy, you think they use in doing wrong things can be turned into doing the right thing.”
On job creation, “We will focus on youths, development, training, and access to funds, we will support them, not just tech, other businesses too. We must explore the entrepreneurial spirit of this youths and do it is simple, train and support them and give them access to funding.”
He further acknowledged that Nigerians cannot do much with tech without good electricity, and in close reference to his discovery of power during his visit to Egypt, he assured Nigerians that power would improve from 5,000 MW to 16,000 MW in his tenure given a timeline of five (5) years
“It will catastrophic if I don’t deliver and we are going to do it by every means possible because we are talking about issues of supporting micro businesses…”
In solving academic issues, he expressed that the Nigerian Government is too involved in the management of education and that the funding methods of Nigerian Universities must change.
“Things must work the way it is, in other developed countries. We will look into the overall funding and make it more effective even to the dilapidated buildings”
In comparison to how Medical Doctors went on strike during his time for almost a year with the current situation with ASUU, he pointed out that the case with the hospitals in Anambra was about lack of accreditation; however, he declared that everybody in Nigeria, not just doctors are not well paid but the first step in making Nigeria better is to move the country from consumption to production.
He went ahead to say that “the country is this pathetic because of lack of production, the more a country is productive, the more people get jobs, the more revenue the government can own, “all of us will work out to be productive, you can’t just stay in your house and say, I have not been well paid, God is not going to give us money from heaven, we can’t go to church and pray and say God bring the money.
What you see in America today, is that people are productive; nobody prints money and dashes anybody. What people say is, I am entitled to this, I am entitled to that, we are all entitled to something but the first entitlement is to be productive, that’s is why I said, for the young people, I didn’t say, I am going to dash them money, I said we are going to train them, and they creating jobs, not government creating jobs.
Here in America, it is businesses, and enterprises, that create jobs, not the government. So, let people not think, oh, I am going to stay in one place… No. We are going to create real jobs that add to society. Looking at Nigeria, we have vast land in the North that is uncultivated and people are looking for food.” He said.
On employment opportunities, he says, “We will focus on youths, development, training, and access to funds and for tech, we will support them, not just tech, other businesses, we must explore the entrepreneurial spirit of this youths and do it is simple, train and support them and give them access to funding.
Above all, the Presidential candidate for Labour Party encouraged Nigerians that in his tenure, “The brain the drain will eventually be brain gain” and the Nigerians in diaspora are the tools to use to achieve the feat of what he has called “brain gain”. His motive is that these Nigerians would invest in Nigeria once the country is stable.
“The Brain drain will eventually be brain gain, those people who are leaving today will be the engine we will use. Today, we will bring stability to the country. That is what happens everywhere in Asia. They are the first people to come home and invest in the country because they have made resources abroad.
All you are seeing today in China, India are investment made by those who left when things were bad, they came back… I was telling them in Kano that those who left the country; their situation is worse because they left their country because there is no hope for them there, that is why they left, where they are, they work hard, they earn money, and now use the money to do social welfare for those people at home but if the place is stable and working, do you know what they will do? They will be investors in their country, those who are there will use the resources to be productive and they don’t have to depend on… They will earn money.”
Above all, he pointed out that Security, Law and Order, and Power (the most critical of all the infrastructures) are drivers of a good economy and fostering hopes in the minds of Nigerians for a better Nigeria, “After all, I have said, one of the change organisms is to ensure that things are done in the right way like every other country. The hope we will give is to do the right thing.”
In rekindling hope, he says, “We are not going to construct all the roads in one day because we do not have the resources… We are going to have zero tolerance for corruption, we are going to stop people from stealing public money because the first thing is to kill corruption if we want entrepreneurship, people are not entrepreneurial in a corrupt system…”,
On matters of insecurity, he declared he has a structure already and state policing is one of the options to consider.”The insecurity we have today can be dealt with decisively and there is no reason why Nigeria should not have state police.”
He went on to say, in reducing criminality, it is important to pull people out of poverty, and increase manpower into security agencies. “the more you pull people out of poverty, the more you reduce criminality and then you are going to bring in more manpower into the security agencies, support them and equip them properly because you now have resources you have saved from cutting down the cost of governance”
Peter Obi did not fail to reinforce that Nigeria is a blessed country with good food, weather, and environment. Nevertheless, he metaphorically described Nigeria as a car with a faulty engine.
“Nigeria is a car with a faulty engine; what is needed is good leadership, character, competence, capacity, and commitment to building a better Nigeria.”
Concerning what he is going to do about the Nigerian refinery knowing fully well that Aliko Dangote is currently building one, he says the Nigerian refineries are not working due to human factors.” The only reason the refineries are not working is due to human factors but within five years, the refineries will work.”
He therefore, encouraged Nigerians to shun every form of sabotage in the forthcoming presidential elections, and Nigerians in Diaspora should get ready to partake in the electoral process.
Finally, when asked if he could decamp to PDP in the future, he says, “Labour Party is the new order while the other two parties should go away. And this new order will be led by people who are committed to the future of Nigeria”
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