Obadiah Mailafia is the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress. In this interview with AYO ESAN in Abuja, he speaks on his plan for the country, among other issues relating to the 2019 presidential race. Excerpts:
Why are you in the 2019 presidential race?
Well, I decided to join the race because I believe that this country can do better. We have been confronted with fake promises. The economy is not doing well, there is high rate of unemployment . It is an atmosphere of collective despair and we believe that those who are blessed with vision and competence should be encouraged to come and help our country. We are here to salvage our country . This is why I am in it and I am happy that we have a running mate already. He is a distinguished Nigerian, a patriot , an intellectual and a grassroot politician in the person of Professor Tanimowo Bolanle Nasiru.
Why did you pick ADC as a platform to run for the election?
Because it is the fastest growing political party, I would say, in Africa. Two, I believe in its philosophy. You know that the symbol is the handshake and that handshake stands for inclusive development. It also stands for solidarity. It also stands for welcoming, we are a welcoming party. We are a national party, not just national, we subscribe to Africa and Pan-Africanism. Our vision is not only the emancipation of our country, it is also the emancipation of our glorious Africa. This is why I identified with this party and I have found the people very patriotic, the philosophy of the party is very clear. Thirty per cent for women, 30 per cent for the youths, and the rest can come in. Even under the rest, the women and youths can still come in. No other party has offered such opportunity for our women and for our youths. In fact, our own campaign is anchored on youths and women because they are in the majority. And we believe that when we bring youths on board, when we bring women on board, we bring the whole nation on board because there is no woman that does not think about her children and her family. Most mothers, before they put food in their mouths, would wait a minute and ask what will my child eat. So, when we empower the woman, we empower her children, we empower her family and empower the community. And we are committed to building a new Nigeria; no other group or party is committed to this in the same way. And the simple reason is that what we are facing is a re-circulation of leaders . Their ideas are the same, nothing new and the youths of this country are tired. They are very tired. They want a new Nigeria, they want a country that offers them hope, that offers them opportunities, a stable environment within an equal system that nurtures talents and creativity. The greatest danger for a free society is to be ruled by your inferiors. Nigerians are highly talented people, especially our youths. Some people called them lazy but I don’t think Nigerian youths are lazy, they are extremely hardworking . They can behave like lazy people when we don’t offer them an even playing field. I believe this because I taught in the university as a social professor and I know how brilliant Nigerian students are. They are the top performers in most universities in the world, Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge. When these brilliant people come back, and many of them are not coming back. When they do come back and they are fixed into a system where they are ruled by people who are their intellectual inferiors, then it is a national tragedy. I am not saying brilliance is the only qualification for leadership, no, but there is no civilised country where they allow the fundamental control of their nation to be headed by a Mumu. Somebody says our mumu don do . So, we are here to change the story, to change the paradigm and to offer the people, especially the young people, hope for the future. This is why we are in this race
Your party, ADC, is a member of the Coalition of United Political Parties and we are hearing that at the end of the day, the CUPP will present a single presidential candidate , do you think you can defeat somebody like Atiku Abubakar of the PDP when the time comes to pick a candidate for CUPP? Or what do you think qualifies you more for the Nigerian Presidency than Atiku and others?
Well, it will be arrogant of me to sit here and announce to the world that I am better than anybody. I do not consider myself better than anybody but my wife is here and she can bear me witness. I love Nigeria more than all of them. God knows that and I am ready to sacrifice for Nigeria. I am ready to serve Nigeria with all my heart, with all my strength. This is where I stand different from them. I have a strong international background of global networks that I can use to leverage on resources that can be brought into investment in this country. Of course, there is CUPP alliance and it will all play out eventually and I think the young people of this country, they are deceived, they have better understanding than we think. And they are tired, like I said, of old orders, they want something different. The people you mentioned, and I don’t want to go into specific names because it is not fair on them. I am sorry, there is no comparison, what my running mate and I can do for this country, there is no comparison. And we have no skeletons in our cupboards. We have not defrauded anybody; we have not defrauded this country. We will do our best for this country and we are going to set up a cabinet in this country that even late Chief Obafemi Awolowo would have been proud of. He believed in excellence, he believed in merit. I will bring the best Nigerians into my cabinet. It would not be just only the best but everybody will have performance contract, every minister, every head of government agencies and parastatals, Director–Generals or Permanent Secretary. Everybody will have performance contract and such performance contracts will be pasted on the door of their offices. After one year, we are just going to review it. How far have you gone with your performance contract? If it is not within expectation, that is the end of the story. You have to give way to somebody who can do it better. And I will not pack all my villagers and put them in Aso Villa, some people are doing it. I will make sure that our government is an inclusive government. It should be a government of the people. It would be a government of all Nigerians, that is why our handshake means inclusion. Nobody will be made a stranger as if he is just a spectator. No. We are going to be your servants and not your masters.
I will tackle this menace of insecurity. We will tackle it and we will confront it. We will use technology. Like this Kaduna-Abuja road, there is a lot of kidnapping going on there. Do you know what I am going to do? I will get a small office here in Abuja, at the police headquarters. We are going to use technology 24 hours; operatives will be on that road 24 hours with camera, any incident they see, they snap and it will raise alarm in the headquarters here. Then, we can send helicopters or any technology design. Nigeria is today the capital of kidnapping in the world and I am going to bring an end to it. And I am going to put a law, all our telephones must have location identity so that when the kidnappers abduct people and are using them to lobby for ransom, security agencies will know exactly where they are. We are not going to compromise with the terrorists. We will crush them, and I repeat, we will crush them. Anybody that doesn’t want peace, and doesn’t respect his neighbour does not have a place in the new Nigeria we are building. We will stop them by fire, by thunder, this nonsense must come to an end. This is not the Nigeria that we grew up to know; this is a barbaric situation and some of us did not grow up like that. We want Nigeria to go back to that lovely and peaceful country that it was. And this is what the youths demand.
Is it true that you would have become the Central Bank of Nigeria Governor?
That is speculative. A lot of people have speculated on that, it is God that gives position and it is speculative and so I cannot give you any definitive answer on that. I worked there before and I know the job very well and that is what I do best. I did my best. But for now, I am offering myself for Nigerian people to serve at an even higher level. And I don’t want to call myself president, but I want to call myself, your servant. I am the servant of the people. This is because, especially Obadiah in the Bible, in the old Hebrew language, means servant of the Most High. So, I am a servant and I want to serve you. I want to serve the people of this country. And my name, Mailafia in Hausa, is the one that brings peace. So, I am a servant and I am bringing peace. What more do you want from a leader? This is what I offer. I offer professionalism of the highest standard. I offer passion, I offer love for our people. I have no prejudice for religion, ethnicity. Where you come from is not important to me. What you can bring for our people, this is what matters
for me.
So there are lots of other issues that I want to tackle headlong. I mentioned insecurity. Number two, nation building and development with restructuring. I don’t just want to say restructuring but nation building with restructuring. We want a new Nigeria, a Nigeria that everybody can identify with. Right now, there are lots of injustices in the current arrangement. People feel short-changed and are bitter. That is why Biafra is coming up. That is why some people are even talking of Oduduwa Republic . This is why some people are talking of Arewa breaking away. We are becoming distant from each other. My plan is to bring the Nigerian people together. What I want to do, really, is to put the country in zones, based on what economists call comparative advantage. The North is very good in agriculture. So it will be agriculture linked into agro-industry. The West are very good in logistics, manufacturing, finance, I will expand that. The East is very good in heavy industries – Nnewi, Aba and all those places – we are going to industralise them. We will open up the country. We will introduce railways, modern railways linking every major cities and towns in this country. The power sector, we are going to tackle it headlong. Do you know nobody is talking of electrification. You don’t just do reforms and go home and sit down and be watching, no. That is not the reform in power sector. We need a programme of electrification, based on universal access to electrical power by every citizen. So, we shall unbundle the downstream sector, the distribution network, which is still being controlled and monopolised by government. We are going to unbundle it so that private sector and foreigners can also invest in that sector. As an immediate measure for the first six months, I will pass an Executive Order. All government buildings in Nigeria from federal, state and local government must have solar panels. That will not solve the problem but it will reduce the problem by 30 per cent. You can imagine what will happen if all industries have solar panels. If all rural clinics, all hospitals, all universities, all secondary schools have solar panels. Students can read at night without any problem, medicines can be stored in the hospital without fear of being destroyed. We can do blood transfusion and save both the mother and baby. And it will create almost a million jobs. Bring the facilities and say, look, they must be manufactured in Nigeria. And train our young people on how to install and maintain them. These are win-win solutions. Not to talk of infrastructure. I have a passion for railways. You can imagine having a fast train from Lagos to Abuja, you can make it under two and half hours instead of the normal seven hours people travel. Some people can actually even live in Lagos, work in Abuja and go back as they do in Tokyo. You can live in Okhaloma and go to Tokyo to work and go back. The same distance between Lagos and Abuja. So I want to industrialise this country. I want to open up this country. We are going to revamp Ajaokuta Steel, bring heavy industries. We are going to build heavy industries. We are going to build a new sector for machines and precision engineering. The only place you can fabricate equipment and engines. How can we as a country be importing everything. I want Nigeria to become a technologically advanced country, competing with Germany. Why not? We can compete with Germany. Nigerians are brilliant people. These are some of the things I want to do and aim to do by the Grace of God and the support of His Excellency, the vice president and
our team.
By the INEC time-table and guideline for the 2019 general elections, the campaign for presidential race will kick off on November 18. How prepared are you and your team for the campaign?
We are prepared. We are ready. We will be up and doing. Let me tell you, our campaign will not be like that of others. We will go with teams looking at local communities. What are their issues? We will talk to various groups, the youth groups, community groups, elders, the traditional rulers. We will find out what are their issues and challenges. For some people, it could be water, for some people, it could be health, for some people, it could be jobs. We are going to document these things. Our plan is to visit every state capital twice at least and in every state, three or four local governments. This is our target. We are also working with young volunteers.
Our campaign is anchored on youths and women. We believe those groups can carry the message far and wide. And they have always been at the receiving end of our developmental challenges. So, we believe if we anchor our campaign on those two groups, the rest of the society will follow. So my dear friend, we are not here in a rehearsal. We are here to take over this country and to show some people how to be a leader. And how to be a leader with vision, with knowledge, with love, with compassion and with
justice.
