My Biggest 2023 Election Lessons — Peter Obi

Mr. Peter Obi, former Governor of Anambra State and the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the February 25, 2023 spoke with Ikechukwu Amaechi on the lessons of the February 2023 Presidential elections and the state of the nation. Excerpts:

The 2023 elections have come and gone. What are the biggest lessons you learnt therefrom?

Well, for me, the biggest lesson is the fact that Nigerians are actually committed to good governance. They are not as complacent as people thought they were because they, especially the youths, were actually committed to doing the right thing. That is why they came out in their numbers to participate in the elections.

The second lesson is the realisation that the leaders, most people in the elite class are not actually interested in good governance because you can classify the electoral umpire as part of the elite class, the government, all of us are not prepared to do the right thing because if the elites are prepared to do the right thing, the result or the outcome of the election would have been different.

But for me the elections have come and gone and I don’t want to talk about the issue of the 2023 elections again. It has come and gone and I am done with it.

What I am talking about now are issues of governance because the average Nigerian today is talking about the Nigeria of today, and the Nigeria of tomorrow. That is what is important.

Talking about governance, are you satisfied with where Nigeria is today?

That is really a question for the generality of Nigerians to answer. Ask the average Nigerian how he is faring today. The truth is that we have many more Nigerians thrown into poverty, millions of Nigerians don’t know where the next meal will come from. Nobody is sure what the price of a cup of rice, garri or a loaf of bread will be tomorrow. So, it is Nigerians that you should ask the question.

It is not a question for me to answer. It is not something I alone will tell you. Ask Nigerians, the masses out there on the streets of Nigeria and you will get a feel of what they are going through. But I know that the situation is critical.

But President Bola Tinubu will definitely disagree. He is of the opinion that his reforms – removal of fuel subsidy and floating of the Naira – in particular are not only bold and consequential but are working, so much so that speaking at the 10th German-Nigerian Business Forum in Berlin, Germany in November 2023, he said he deserves to be listed in the Guinness World Records for the reforms he has made since assuming office on May 29, 2023.

He may actually be correct when he claims that his name deserves to be in the Guinness World Records. Don’t forget that people’s names don’t always make it into the Guinness World Records for only altruistic reasons. So, it depends on which angle he is coming from. If the idea is to put his name in the Guinness Book of Records for causing Nigerians the most hardship – untold hardship, of course he is spot on and I will totally agree with him because his reforms are not achieving what they are meant to achieve.

But some of your critics say that both you and Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), also promised to remove the fuel subsidy if elected. So, Tinubu did it. What is wrong with that?

Yes, I agree that the fuel subsidy has to be removed because it is not sustainable, but there should have been gains from the removal. Right now, they say they are saving billions of Naira, which nobody is feeling the positive impact. The other subsidy is the exchange rate. They said when the Naira is floated, people will be able to access foreign exchange at the same rate. But today there is even a wider gap between the official exchange rate and the unofficial rate. The official rate is about N900 to $1 while the unofficial rate hovers between N1,300 to N1,400. So, the gap today is even bigger.

Source: Vanguard

Email: elora.akpotosevbe@yahoo.com