From Okwe Obi, Abuja
Mr. Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, renown businessman and former students’ union activist, has formally declared his intention to slug it out with Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chris Ngige; Minister of State for Education, Emeka Uwajiuba; Senator Rochas Okorocha, former Senate president, Ken Nnamani and others for the 2023 APC presidential ticket.
Olawepo-Hashim, who indicated his interest in a 12-minute video released, yesterday, pledged to salvage the country from the grips of poverty, unemployment, insecurity and ethnic division, if elected president.
He said in no distance time, he would unveil his 30-point agenda, and insisted he is qualified and ready to reshape the country having built businesses from scratch to finish in the oil and gas and ICT industry and also, leveraging on his political experience in Nigeria, spanning more than three decades.
“There is a fire in the belly of an average patriotic Nigerian which, when lit is able to consume any imaginable size of evil.
“I have stepped out to ignite that fire in my decision to seek the presidency of the Federal Republic of Nigeria during the 2023 election. Mine is not an ambition, but a historic burden.
“It is a burden imposed on me right from my late teens when as undergraduate youth activist, my generation committed ourselves to the struggle for social and economic development of Nigeria as well as to the struggle for democratic rule.
“Our great country, Nigeria is gripped in the clutch of insecurity. Worsening energy crisis due to absence of local refining of petroleum products and inadequate electricity generation, transmission and distribution.
“Prices of goods and services are all-time high, eroding wages and household incomes. Poverty is ravaging the land, joblessness among the youth is over 54 percent, leading to unprecedented social crisis.
“Corruption is widespread and all known and universal human values are fast becoming extinct. Health, education and even sports have taken the plunge leading to more avoidable deaths.
“Maternal mortality per life birth and is the first highest in Africa. 970/100,000 life birth. Our infant mortality is one of the highest in the world. While an average life expectancy in the country is worse than even some poor African States. Life expectancy in Nigeria is 55 years, 63 years in Niger, 64 in Liberia and in Sudan, 65 years. “The political trajectory of the country is dim and dark as deep ethnic cleavages and bigotry have dominated the landscape, accentuating the crisis, undermining any initiative for a coercive national redemption.
“The culprits for this immediate state of affairs are the dominant elites of Nigeria across party lines, whose rising has been self interest and personal aggrandisement especially in the past 24 years after the unfortunate decades of military rule.”
Olawepo-Hashim added that the “summary of that plan is encapsulated in our 50 point agenda to be publicly presented soon by the grace of God. In the past three decades, I have built businesses from the scratch in the energy and infrastructural sector in Nigeria and other continents of the world.
“I have acquired formal and informal training. By the grace of God, I have the energy, passion and vision to drive this transformation that our great nation desperately needs.
“I know how to build even from the scratch or bridge the existing divide in the nation and heal the wounds and bring our nation together again.”