Can we concentrate on the issues now?

Now that all the presidential candidates and their running mates have emerged, it was expected that the focus will now be on the issues but trust Nigerians to focus on the mundane.

No doubt, the 2023 presidential election will be one of the most important since independence, and the reasons are not far-fetched. Anyone expecting the next president to turn Nigeria into Eldorado in less than one year needs to have his head examined. It is practically impossible. So I get vexed when I see some messianic complex of some of the candidates. They are just setting themselves up for the big fall.

Instead of Nigerians interrogating all the candidates, we have spent the better part of two weeks discussing Muslim-Muslim ticket and forgetting about the real issues. No doubt, religion is a sensitive issue in Nigeria but it doesn’t put food on the table. Nigeria is one of the most religious countries in the world and yet one of the most corrupt. We start meetings with prayers and in that same meeting inflate contracts and devise means to fleece Nigerians.

Besides, most Nigerian politicians profess to be Christians and Muslims in the morning and are traditionalists and animists at night. I see some of the characters parading as defenders of the Christian faith and I laugh.

The fixation and hypocrisy of the religion of the candidates are nauseating. In my opinion, it is a storm in a teacup and it’s not worth the hullabaloo. The last time I checked we have over five presidential candidates. If you are not comfortable with the All Progressive Congress (APC) and its Muslim-Muslim ticket, the most natural thing to do is punish them by voting for rival political parties. The best revenge is voting against the APC and not the vituperations on social media.

With all due respect to the other candidates, for now, we have four major candidates going into the presidential election. Bola Tinubu of the APC, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Obi of the Labour Party, and Rabiu Musa Kwakwaso of the New Nigeria People Party (NNPP).

The biggest issue facing the country right now is insecurity. According to the data sourced and analysed by TheCable Index, the data and research arm of TheCable, one thousand, seven hundred and forty-three Nigerians were reportedly killed in the first quarter of 2022 owing to insecurity. The figure surpasses the number of civilians reportedly killed in the first month of the Russia-Ukraine war.

No day passes without hearing stories of killings and kidnappings by bandits and terrorists. No region in the country is immune from insecurity right now.

The question; what are the blueprints of Tinubu, Atiku, Obi, and Kwakwaso to solve the raging insecurity? Nigerians want to see in practical terms how they intend to achieve it with timelines. I don’t think many Nigerians will accept blanket statements that ‘I will solve the insecurity problem in six months‘. How do you intend to achieve it? Without solving the insecurity problem, all other achievements of the administration will come to nought. Since 1999, no administration has done infrastructure like President Muhammadu Buhari but no one remembers that. He will be remembered more for whether he will solve insecurity or not.

Another major issue is the worsening state of the economy and the free fall of the naira. The candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, said he will move Nigeria from a consumption to a production economy. Good idea. How does he intend to achieve that? Where will he get the resources to revive ailing industries? What is the practical roadmap to achieving that?

Atiku Abubakar said he wants to see a leaner federal government and wants to devolve more power to the states. As an advocate of restructuring, how will he convince his home base in the north to accept the idea? Most northerners see the restructuring option as a blackmail weapon against them.

Tinubu said he wants to replicate the Lagos blueprint in Nigeria, how does he intend to achieve that? Lagos is not Nigeria and he may not get a submissive legislature unlike in the states where the legislature is on life support. Some reports still regard Lagos as one of the worst places to live in the world.

I have not heard about Kwakwaso’s blueprint on how he intends to move Nigeria forward.

The different candidates have waxed lyrical on how they will use agriculture to generate jobs and most of them will end up giving the youths hoe, shovel, and wheelbarrow. Agriculture and its value chain is a big business around the world. How do they intend the maximise the full potential in the agriculture sector?

How does the next president intend to solve the protracted ASUU problem and power supply? ASUU has been going on strike since the military era and the issues have not been solved, no government has successfully resolved the incessant strikes. Also, successive governments have spent trillions on power yet we have not been able to generate more than 5000MW. These days, the national grid collapses virtually every week like Dino Melaye when arrested by the police. How do any of the candidates intend to get the 20000MW mark at least?

These are the issues and not the Muslim-Muslim ticket or whether Abraham Lincoln contested for the US presidency four or five times or whether we have 200 Nigerians in the American NBA. Focus.