Dr. Davidson Akhimien is the Presidential Candidate of the Grassroots Development Party of Nigeria. In this interview with ADELEKE ADESANYA, he x-rays the nations’s socio-political problems, saying that politicians who have resorted to vote-buying, as a veritable tool for winning elections, are enemies of the people. Excerpts:
Why are you in the presidential race?
Several people have asked me this question because they are surprised. But let me tell you that my reason is that there has been a serious failure in our leadership system in this country. Nigeria, as a nation, cannot continue like this. We need to rise to the challenges of getting power in the hands of the right people. More importantly, I came out to run for the post of the president because I think I have the confidence, I have the capacity, I have the energy and I have the brain.
Our country is a country that is so much blessed with natural resources, blessed with human resources but we have not been able to utilise this well. And this is one of our major reasons for failure.
Some people say you do not have the credentials to run for the position. How would you react to this?
First, let me say that I am a citizen of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. If you speak linguistically, I speak three major languages in Nigeria. If you talk in terms of sojourn, I have sojourned in every part of this country. If you talk of national service, I am a retired military officer of a military intelligence extraction. I have served my country. If you talk in terms of a global citizen, I am a global citizen.
Our people need to be educated; education is the foundation for national development. Our major thrust is going to be developing the human mind of Nigerians and that is by proper and sound education.
Insecurity is one of the major problems Nigeria has been facing for some time now. How would you tackle this challenge if you emerge the next president of Nigeria?
Being a retired military officer, I will leave no stone unturned in dealing with this challenge. For me, I believe that the insecurity problem of this country could be tackled from two major fronts, which are going to be quite a departure from the style the present government is adopting.
If I emerge the next president of this country, I will tackle insecurity and terrorism in the North East. My government is going to be so much concerned with our military approach. Strengthening our armed forces will be a core thing. Away from that, the armed forces will be re-equipped adequately. Their inventory will be changed to modern ones that are required for the 21st century asymmetric kind of war fight. Of course, as it is today, most of the insurgents are trained in modern-day fighting techniques. Terrorists use very modern armaments, and so, never in our history should terrorists be better armed than our armed forces and we should not allow ragtag army, while terrorists are better equipped than them. So, my type of president will prioritise proper equipment of the military because they are so much important in defending the nation.
There are serious concerns from stakeholders in the country about vote buying, especially as the election is fast approaching. How do you think this can be curbed?
I have said this severally and I will repeat it again here. Nigerians at this age need to understand that vote-buying is an insult to us as a nation. It shows how poor the participants are mentally.
I must say that the political class is culpable in the vote buying and vote selling phenomenon. Any politician that comes to buy your vote is not interested in your welfare, neither is he interested in your future. Nigerians should know that politicians that buy votes do not have their interest at heart. They are nothing but democracy sellers. That is to say, buying and selling, the same way one buys tomatoes and pepper and it means the voter has been reduced to a commodity. Nigerians should know that they have more value and worth than that. It is high time Nigerians rose to the challenge and say no to vote buying. Any contestant that comes to them for vote buying should be shunned.
There are insinuations that GDPN is forming an alliance with other parties ahead of the election. How true is this, especially as the election is just a few days away?
Let me tell you, the major issue with some political parties in this country is lack of ideology. As a new entrant into the political space, we have come with a very strong political ideology; we believe in our ideology and for us, it is a new thing altogether. We have come into politics to play politics of the 21st century, which is the politics of development. Our own politics would serve as a counter-culture to the existing political culture of underdevelopment. Ours is about bringing a revolution into the political space. We are an ideologically based party. And we will align with any party that shares our type of ideology.
How would you dissect Nigeria’s problem?
We have experienced a trajectory of awkward experience and a downward slide in our social life and the economy. The livelihood of an average Nigerian in the international arena has been on a downward spiral since the 80s to where we are now. If you go through your history very well, you will discover that we are not where we used to be. Indeed, we are throttling towards an abyss. There is insecurity everywhere. There is the inability of an average Nigerian to push his life forward and the lack of affordable accommodation everywhere in the country. Massive unemployment with over 20 million people should give somebody like me sleepless nights. That is a huge percentage. With about 1.8million Internally Displace Persons in Nigeria, as at today, that does not speak well of a country like ours.
If you ask me when I become President, what will I like to do? It’s like rebuilding Nigeria all over again. We are haemorrhaging in every area of societal life.
Are you saying you want to rebuild the nation if you win the presidential election?
Yes, of course! What I am saying is that this country needs to be seriously fixed. Look at the security issue. My administration will be looking at restoring the security of lives and property of Nigerians so that they can sleep with their eyes closed. We need to understand that security is a primary responsibility of government as captured in the 1999 constitution as
amended.
The other thing we are going to be looking at is education, which is key for me. For me as an individual, I weep and I consider it a denial of fundamental human right for any citizen to be deprived of education. When you talk about a country of 200 million people, we should be talking about 200 million highly developed minds. Unfortunately, the percentage of illiterate people is within a neighbourhood of 60 per cent of the entire population and this is not good enough. The level of educated people is directly proportional to the development of that country. When we are talking of building infrastructure, minds must be developed to maintain that infrastructure, if not, you find out that all your investment in that infrastructure will not be
sustainable. Education is key. Educate a man and you have started the building blocks of
a nation.
