Presidential Candidate of Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi on Friday said that the problems facing Nigeria are not beyond solutions. He however cautioned against impatience, saying the problems wont be solved overnight.
Obi made this assertion during his appearance on American media corporation Cables News Network(CNN) anchored by Zain Asher.
In the course of the interview, the anchor of Zain Exchange, Zain Asher, who described him as the most popular candidate among the young people asked, ”Nigerians are used to being disappointed by their leaders, can all the problems of Nigeria which are corruption, oil theft, insecurity, physical.. be solved by one person?
In his response to the question, Obi said, “If we have a leader that is competent, have the capacity, and commitment to deal with it, no one will solve it overnight. But there will be a clear, visible, measurable attempts to dealing with it. And they are things that are solveable. There are things they can be dealt decisively.
On the issue of insecurity facing the country,Obi said the first priority for any Nigerian leader in the next administration is the security of lives and properties adding that with security in place in the country, farmers will be able to go back to the farm.
According to Peter Obi, the level of insecurity in Nigeria is high which makes it difficult for people to invest in the country.
The former Anambra state governor noted that insecurity is impacting negatively on the economy of the country and needs to be dealt with decisively if the country wants to rise above poverty.
“One is that you have to deal decisively with security. It is impacting negatively on your economy today. Because you have to get your farmers to go back to the farm, and start ensuring that the vast land of the North is invested and cultivated on. You have to start pulling people out of poverty as quickly as possible,” Obi said
The leader of ‘Obedients’ urged Nigerians to move away from the politics of ethnicity, religion, connection and ‘my turn’ as it’s killing Nigeria progress noted that Nigerians need to be deliberate about electing good leaders.
“That is what it was yesterday. And that is our problem, because we have been able to elect people based on ethnicity, religion, ‘my turn’, connection, or one form of bias or the other, which brought us to where we are or structure, which I always say is structure of criminality,” he said.
“That is what we want to dismantle now and ensure that the next election is based on character, capacity, competence, commitment to do the right thing.
“Nigeria is not just in a physical mess; it is at the last stage to collapsing. The people in the north don’t have a secured place; they don’t have good roads; they don’t buy bread cheaper than people in the south. So it is with people in the south.
“All you hear about ethnicity, religion, connection, ‘my turn’ is elite conspiracy to keep Nigeria underdeveloped. But now, we have reached the edge. We can no longer continue this way.”