Victor EzejaLabour Party presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi has reiterated the need to engage the Nigerians in diaspora, insisting that they have invaluable roles to play in the quest to entrench good governance in Nigeria.
Mr. Obi while speaking to Nigerians in Washington DC on Thursday, said he remained convinced that Nigerians in the diaspora can play active roles in the furtherance of good governance in the country.
While lamenting the poor state of the nation’s economy, security, education, healthcare, and general standard of living, the LP presidential candidate noted that they were due to cumulative leadership failure over the years. Comparing Nigeria with China, India, and some other Asian Tigers of today, that have succeeded in reducing the number of their citizens living in poverty, he said that with more than 200 million people, the country now has more people living in poverty than before.
Obi has in the past few days been on an engagement tour from Germany, Canada to the United States of America where he has been meeting with Nigerians to discuss the need for them to participate in the transformation of the country through the deployment of their skills, experience and also investment in critical sectors of the economy.
He had earlier while speaking to Nigerians in Houston, Advocated that those in the diaspora should be given the opportunity to participate in elections starting from 2027 through what he called “absentee ballot” to enable them to have a voice on who becomes the leader of the country.
He said, “I remain convinced of the invaluable and proactive role Nigeria Diaspora can play in the furtherance of good governance. Such a role is possible and desirable.”
Talking about steps to take in transforming the country, Obi emphasised on creating enabling environment for robust socio-economic activities by reviewing the power sector reform deployment of critical facilities and a system that will boost supply.
This he said could be done through public-private partnership scheme.
“Bolstering our power sector is imperative. We will lay special emphasis on critical infrastructure, especially Power, to ensure a clear measurable increase of 200% of today’s generation, transmission and distribution, within the shortest possible time through public-private partnership.
“We will proactively reassert Nigeria’s leadership role in African affairs through constructive engagement, using existing sub-regional and regional forums as well as bilateral platforms for dialogue on current and emerging challenges.
On security, Obi said “We will rebuild Nigeria’s military power, promote economic growth, and enhance its technological prowess to improve Nigeria’s diplomatic influence in sub-regional, regional and global affairs via peacekeeping activities.”
He equally talked about boosting internet penetration to all areas currently not covered for better communication that enhances socioeconomic activities.
“We will pursue aggressively modalities for raising the national internet penetration and robust contribution of ICT to overall economic growth aid national development.”
Responding to a question posed by one of the attendees of the event about reuniting the country given the level of division along ethnic and religious lines, Obi said the task of reuniting the country is not a difficult one. “Nigerians, have shown the capacity to come together when there is anything that gives them hope. All these divisions we are seeing today are caused by elite conspiracy to keep the country where it is today so that they can continue to lead us in confusion. If we have a good leader today, there is a tendency that everything will be fine. Every country has an ethnic problem, even in America here. We don’t have more ethnic groups than other countries but once they see exemplary leadership, they will come together.”
He said good leadership creates a conducive environment for job creation which reduces poverty. “The more you pull people out of poverty, the more you see all these things change. It happened in Brazil, Mexico and many other places. So, we would work hard by creating opportunities to bring everybody together.”
Speaking on the issue of division and crisis in the country, a professor of Political Economy, Prof. Pat. Utomi who has been with Obi in the engagements, said it is caused by the poor structure of the Nigerian federation which limits people’s freedom and access to opportunities and accommodate one another.
Utomi who is the convener of the Big Tent Coalition and founder of the Centre for Values in Leadership (CVL), noted that back in the late 1950s and early 1960s when the country had the first federation experience, “Nigerians were found to be competing about who would most bring progress to their people. This phenomenon came to be called ‘Competitive communalism – ethnic nationality groups who were trying to bring the most progress to their people,” Utomi stated.
He remarked that with the failure of the federalism came an intense unhealthy fight to share opportunities making it seem like a zero-sum game where the win for one group means a loss for another. “If you win it means that I have lost; so, in the fight to share, we have become very antagonistic to one another. but if the federal structure has allowed everybody to produce adequately, and people are prospering, and that happened in the 5os, there will be less the kind of tension that is there is today.”
He said some politicians are obviously cashing in on the current situation thereby deepening the divide so that they can continue to profit from it.
He said true leadership ought to show people that there is no need for division and that every part of the country can thrive and everybody be happy living together.
Victor Ezeja is a passionate journalist with six years of experience writing on economy, politics and energy. He holds a Masters degree in Mass Communication.
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