By Chukwudi Nweje

Former National Chairman of the National Conscience Party (NCP) and 2015 presidential candidate of the party, Martins Onovo in this interview, looks at the presidential candidates on the ballot ahead of 2023 general election. He says though Nigerians will be forced to pick a president from the list “that our dysfunctional process has produced”, the electorate should elect one that has the capacity to restore peace and unity in the country.

Nigeria marked her 62nd independence anniversary on October 1, what is your impression of the country?

Nigeria, like many other former British colonies, has been challenged from independence given the manipulations by the colonial masters and their North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) allies. The 1960 Federal Constitution mitigated some of these challenges with healthy competition among the regions. With the Republican Constitution of 1963, things remained fair until the attempted coup of 1966 and the subsequent coup of 1967 and the Nigerian/Biafra Civil War. After the war, some northern Muslim hawks moved forcefully to consolidate northern domination using the military unitary system. Their unpatriotic moves established the unstable situation of mass deceit, injustice, corruption, and northern Muslim domination. That situation severely constrained national development from 1970 to 1983. However, with the election of former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999, patriotic attempts were made by the government to unite the country, fight corruption, obtain foreign debt relief and also improve human and infrastructural development. Former President Umaru Musa Yar’ Adua who succeeded former President Obasanjo performed excellently with strategic efforts to unite the country, control corruption, and improve infrastructure. Unfortunately, health challenges and death cut short his tenure. Former President Goodluck Jonathan succeeded former President Yar’ Adua and continued with deliberate efforts to improve the economy and national infrastructure. In 2015, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari and his collaborators seized power and moved desperately with mass deceit, sectionalism, and dictatorial power to force their Islamisation and Fulanisation agenda on Nigeria. In their desperate dictatorial attempts against morality and the Nigerian Constitution, they promoted sectionalism, division, discrimination, injustice, incompetence, corruption, and lawlessness. The consequences of the deceitful, divisive, dictatorial, incompetent, and corrupt Buhari regime are the unprecedented poverty, insecurity, corruption, and economic ruination we suffer now. According to Prof. Adebanji Akintoye of the Yoruba World Congress, “Buhari …. has destroyed our country”. We agree with Prof. Akintoye, and we must now ensure that we use the opportunity of the end of the tenure of the Buhari regime, to get a strong, young, ethical, and competent new-breed political leader that can get Nigeria back on the path of integrity, justice, peace, unity, diligence, and development.

Many people share your views that the country has not done well; how can we overcome these issues of corruption, lawlessness, and other problems you mentioned, what do you recommend as a way to overcome them?

The challenges of corruption of public morality, insecurity, corruption, and economic ruination can be overcome if we democratically remove all criminals and failures from our political leadership and get strong, young, ethical, and competent new-breed political leaders that can get Nigeria back on the path of integrity, justice, peace, unity, diligence, and development.

The process of electing these young ethical and competent political leaders has already started with the commencement of electioneering campaigns on September 28, what do you think the issues should be about and what should the electorate watch out for in the candidates?

The issues must include the integrity, vision, character, and competence of the candidate. The electorate must watch out for clean candidates that are not over-burdened by their past criminal and corruption records; candidates who are morally, mentally, and medically fit; candidates that are young and strong; candidates that are not a part of the old, corrupt and recycled failures of our past.

You talk about candidates that are not over-burdened by their past criminal and corruption records, what is your impression of the major candidates like Atiku Abubakar of PDP, Bola Tinubu of APC, and Peter Obi of Labour Party, which of them would you say fits your description, and who can take the country to the desired level?

There are only two tolerable candidates that we can see for now. They are, Social Democratic Party SDP’s Prince Adewole Adebayo and Labour Party’s Mr. Peter Obi. Maybe they will align. Alhaji Atiku’s candidacy is very irregular and undemocratic, his prodigal vision is poor, and he has many alleged links to corruption cases, his moral and mental profiles are low and he is too old. Alhaji Bola Tinubu’s candidacy is Islamist, irregular, unlawful, and definitely untenable. His agbado vision is incompetent; he was allegedly indicted in a drug investigation in America; he has many cases at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC); he is too old at 86 years and too sick. Prof. Soyinka in Alhaji Tinubu’s sickness issue referred to the Yoruba deity Obatala (the protector of the afflicted). Mr. Peter Obi is younger, stronger, and cleaner, without corruption cases, and has a better moral, mental and physical fitness profile. He has also come up first in all the credible polls so far both national and international. He is rightly the front-runner though he is also a neo-liberal like Alhaji Atiku and Alhaji Tinubu. Mr. Peter Obi is clearly the best in the poor list of presidential candidates that our dysfunctional process has produced.

What do you mean by Peter Obi being a neoliberal candidate like Atiku Abubakar and Tinubu?

Neo-liberalism is an extreme form of free market capitalism that deliberately increases the role of the private sector in the national economy through economic liberalisation including deregulation, commercialisation, and privatisation. This is the economic model sponsored by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. It is clearly contrary to the Nigerian Constitution which requires a social democratic free market system.

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You mentioned the SDP candidate, Prince Adewole Adebayo to be a tolerable candidate, what do you think are his chances, has he ever been in public office?

He is a very brilliant candidate, and he comes from a very strong democratic background but his party and his campaign organisation seem to be taking too much time to launch out. He may have to align with the Labour Party as most of his comrades are aligned with the Labour Party.

What kind of person do you think the country needs as president come 2023?

The universal requirements for leadership remain relevant. First is ethical integrity. Second is vision, third is competence. Comprehensive competence will require, moral, mental, and medical fitness, Therefore, the kind of president Nigeria needs must be a politician of high ethical integrity, clear and pragmatic vision, moral uprightness, mental strength, and medical fitness.

The 2023 general election is seen as a make-or-mar poll on the continued corporate existence of Nigeria, what do you think?

They may be right. Some of us here do not expect any general elections. We expect a national crisis before the general elections or immediately after the charade that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is arranging. It is clear that the candidate of the ruling cabal lost out in the primaries and the ruling cabal is unwilling to conduct free and fair elections. We also remember that Dr. Obadiah Mailafia warned us of the Fulani plan to start a civil war this year 2022. We have seen the terrorist moves to spread insecurity southwards; we have seen the re-launch of the obnoxious ‘Water Resources Bill’; the unlawful efforts of the government to establish grazing reserves; and the plan to conduct a fake census immediately before the 2023 general elections. These seem deliberately calculated to cause a crisis and disrupt the elections. Again, we are warning all Nigerians to read the handwriting on the wall.

How do you rate INEC preparations for the 2023 general elections?

It seems very clear that INEC is the greatest enemy of democracy in Nigeria. Previously, INEC violated many of its own requirements for free and fair elections. INEC registered underage voters, tolerated the violation of election finance limits, tolerated perjury, and allowed under-aged voters, INEC has falsified election results in the past. INEC has absolutely no credibility. INEC lacks integrity and no system can work effectively without integrity. We know that INEC is the ‘Election Committee of the ruling party and works to aid the ruling party to rig elections in their Islamisation agenda. How can we believe the same INEC under its current Chairman? INEC deceived the entire country with its ‘Electronic Collation Manual’ and electronic card readers in 2019 only to bypass them in Northern Nigeria and deny the opposition access to its server to show evidence of the massive rigging of the 2019 presidential election. INEC claimed it accredited over 900,000 voters in Boko Haram-infested Borno State alone, this is the same Borno State that the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo said was largely inaccessible due to the Islamic terrorist insurgency. INEC has no credibility. We cannot believe INEC which under its current Chairman is a puppet of the ruling party. We have seen many videos of PVCs of Christians dumped or buried by INEC to suppress Christian voters in line with the Islamisation agenda.

Despite agitations by the civil society against some of the nominees for INEC commissioner position, they have all been cleared by the Senate, and they await swearing-in by President Buhari, what do you say, and what do you think the civil society groups and Nigerians should do?

The Senate with Alhaji Ahmed Lawan publicly proclaimed itself a rubber-stamp Senate. It has maintained the profile of a rubber-stamp Senate so, we are not surprised. As we previously indicated, it seems to us that the ruling cabal is confused and fearful in the circumstances of their catastrophic failure in government and the loss of their preferred presidential aspirant in their party primary election. Please remember that Alhaji Ahmed Lawan of the Senate was their preferred candidate, but he lost at the presidential primaries. The options ‘A’ and ‘B’ open to the cabal now are to rig the election for any of the candidates that agree with them or to disrupt the elections. While they may have not agreed with any candidate yet, the evidence is clear that they are arranging to disrupt the elections. The Movement for Fundamental Change (MFC) has identified five bobby traps, each of which has the capacity and is calculated to disrupt the 2023 general elections. These include; firstly, the irregular 2023 census proposed before the elections; secondly,  the obnoxious ‘Water Resources Bill’ that was reintroduced again;  thirdly, the lack of transparency and sectional manipulations in INEC; fourthly, the deadly move of Islamist terrorists southwards towards the Christian strongholds; and fifthly, the insecurity hype that is calculated to justify sectional security persecution and a state of emergency declaration. Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. Nigerians must persevere and explore other political, strategic, spiritual, and legal opportunities to ensure integrity, justice, and fairness in INEC.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has again raised the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR), otherwise known as interest rate, by 150 basis points, to 15.5 per cent from 14 per cent, what do you think of the decision?

The decision is very cosmetic. The failure of the CBN in its economic stability and monetary policy role was easily predictable and accurately predicted by many. The obvious misalignment of fiscal policy and monetary policy is clear evidence of the incompetence of the Buhari regime. Also, the current leadership of the CBN is definitely more political than professional. The politicization and associated corruption of the role of the CBN has led to an unprecedented devaluation of the Naira and hyperinflation. Note that technical solutions are not effective for fundamental macroeconomic deviations. The worst aspect may be the impunity with which the leadership of the CBN violates the CBN Act.