Peter Obi, the Labour Party presidential candidate has asked Nigerians to hold him responsible if he fails to change the economic trajectory of the country from consumption to production in accordance with his campaign promises, if and when he is elected president in February.
Speaking in an interview recently in Abuja, Obi said, “I am in it to bring the change that Nigeria has been missing all these years.”
Peter Obi — a former state governor and banker — has emerged as the most popular politician with the best chance of upstaging the two political stalwarts; Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the ruling All Progressive Congress, APC, and Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, all of whom are running for the number one position in the country and to replace president Muhammadu Buhari whose tenure ends in a few months
Obi who emerged the presidential candidate on the platform of the Labour party following his sudden exit from the main opposition party, PDP, has in a short time built an enthusiastic base of followership that call themselves Obidients who appear to be providing what political pundits call the ‘third Force,’ that is set to snatch power from political organisations that have held sway in the past twenty years.
Although, this new political movement known as the Obidients seem to lack the traditional political structure required to clinch power; the movement made up of mostly young Nigerians have in recent time taking to the streets in complete deviance and to tell the critics that they the people make up the structure as against the corrupt political institutions they call structure which are put in place for the purposes of rigging elections.
In the face of seemingly unsurmountable challenges such as mounting debt burden, increasing inflation, rising unemployment, devaluing currency, insecurity professional brain drain exacerbated by the lingering, Academic Staff Union of University, ASUU, strike and a host of other problems, Nigerians are more than determined this time around to get it right and put their dear country once more on the path of growth. And for many, the Obi/Datti ticket is the means to achieve that goal, hence the strong following.
“We cannot continue this level of fiscal recklessness,” Obi said, adding that he would cut gasoline subsidies that give Nigerians some of the world’s cheapest pump prices. That intervention is consistently depriving the state of more than $1 billion per month and, if not phased out, could cost the government a sum greater than its entire income next year.
“We are going to remove it,” he said, arguing that corruption accounts for half of the subsidy bill.
If he wins, Obi said he will try to restructure Nigeria’s debt “to a manageable level” because the current burden “doesn’t give us breathing space to invest in critical areas.” Instead of “borrowing for consumption” and to finance the cost of government, new lending would fund spending on education, health and security, he said.
Violent groups have expanded their reach across Nigeria in the past seven years, leaving larger swathes of the country living in fear of attacks and kidnappings. Stemming that insecurity will be his “number one priority,” Obi said, adding he will decentralize the police and invest in more personnel.
The stakes could not be higher, according to Obi. Because the government no longer controls its territory or the economy, Nigeria meets the “two main critical measures of a failing state,” he said. “It is a crisis situation but it’s solvable.”
The sixty one year old former banker who chaired Fidelity Bank Plc before serving as a two-term governor of Anambra State, Obi says he’s ready to face up to the hopes and frustrations that have been placed on his perhaps improbable shoulders. “I want the whole country to hold me responsible,” he said. “We are not going to change it overnight but we must start doing the right things. I am not going to do magic.”