Executive Briefing
Outside the veteran presidential
aspirants currently dotting the turf is the
imperative of neutral choice that could
fill into the bill of a dream president. Ojo
M. Maduekwe writes
THISDAY reported on Sunday that the
International Crisis Group (ICG) “has
warned that prevailing indices suggest
Nigeria is heading towards a very volatile
and vicious electoral contest.”
An independent, non-profit, non-
governmental organisation committed to
preventing and resolving deadly conflict,
the group was quoted to have warned in
its report that, “If this violent trend
continues, and particularly if the vote is
close, marred or followed by widespread
violence, it would deepen Nigeria’s
already grave security and governance
crises.”
Some of the forecast highlighted by the
group were: “Factional feuds within both
parties could degenerate into violence
during their national and state primaries.
Competing claims to the presidency,
between northern leaders and their
Niger Delta counterparts, could also
result in violence in either or both
regions, particularly after the polls.
“As in 2011, clashes could erupt in some
northern states if the APC, whose
frontrunners are all northerners, loses
the polls; there is similarly a high risk of
violence if the PDP loses the presidency,
particularly in the Niger Delta, home
region of the party’s candidate, President
Goodluck Jonathan.”
According to THISDAY, the group advised
that the government, its agencies and all
other national figures must work urgently
to ensure that the vote is not conducted
in an explosive situation.
From the look of things, the build-up to
the 2015 elections would continue to
witness increasing crises. The signs are
already manifesting. On November 20,
the Nigeria Police Force teargased House
of Representatives lawmakers trying to
gain entrance to the National Assembly
complex.
The lawmakers, mostly from the
opposition All Progressives Congress
(APC), included the Speaker, Aminu
Tambuwal, had resumed to consider a
request by President Goodluck Jonathan
to extend the emergency rule in the
three North-eastern States of Yobe,
Borno and Adamawa. When refused
entrance by police officers, they resorted
to scaling the complex gate.
On the same day, in another
development, seven PDP House of
Assembly members in Ekiti State, in an
abuse of the 1999 Constitution
impeached the Speaker of the 26-
member Assembly, Adewale Omirin and
his deputy, Adetunji Orisalade. They
replaced them with Dele Olugbemi and
Abeni Olayinka as Speaker and deputy
respectively.
The Speaker and his deputy, both
members of the APC were impeached
amid tight security provided by the
police. The seven lawmakers had on
Monday, November 17, sat in a similar
fashion to approve the three
commissioner-nominees of the state
governor, Ayodele Fayose, a PDP
member.
They also approved the appointment of
12 advisers and reconstituted the
caretaker committees of the State 16
Local Government Areas. Olugbemi had
presided over the House then as Speaker
pro-tempore.
The deepening political crisis in Nigeria
has provoked human rights lawyer, Femi
Falana, in calling “all the genuine
democratic forces who led the Nigerian
people to fight against unending military
rule and who equally defeated the cabal
that attempted to take advantage of
President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s ill-
health to seize power from the then
acting President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan,”
to help salvage the situation.
Judging from the report of the ICG, the
halting of “the implosion of fascism on
the nation by the Jonathan
administration,” according to Falana, is
just one side to the coin of the problem.
Any attempt at salvaging the current
democracy, if misinterpreted by some
elements in the Niger Delta as a ploy to
“deny” them the presidency, could lead
to greater problems.
It is for the above reason that Islamic
Cleric, Sheikh Gumi, before Falana called
on “democratic forces” to salvage Nigeria,
made the wider suggestion for the ruling
PDP to dump its presidential candidate,
Jonathan, by fielding another person,
and the opposition APC presidential
aspirant, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, to
reconsider his ambition to contest the
presidency.

According to the letter written by Gumi,
which has been recently re-echoed by
the report of the ICG, as long as anyone
of Jonathan or Buhari leads Nigeria, the
country would continue to witness crises.
It appears the only solution to an
extension of the present crises plaguing
the country, is for the PDP and APC to
field other candidates. In a situation
where both refuse, the remaining
political parties should present to the
masses a credible candidate as an
alternative to both Jonathan and Buhari.
As things stand, aside the Citizens
Popular Party (CPP), no other political
party is fielding a candidate to contest
the 2015 presidential election. Not long
ago, the All Progressives Grand Alliance
(APGA) said it had adopted President
Jonathan as its presidential candidate.
The Labour Party (LP), on its part remains
undecided but would likely not field any
candidate for the presidency.
The CPP’s candidate is a relatively
unknown businessman, Mr. Michael
Ovienmhada, whose party does not have
the financial war chest of both Jonathan
and Buhari’s APC but, Ovienmhada
boasts of a “great” manifesto, if he is
given the chance by the masses in 2015
to lead Nigeria.
During his declaration sometime in
October, Ovienmhada promised the
following: “To the children of this
country, I say, there is a promise and a
hope for you. We will make the necessary
investment to ensure Free and
qualitative education from Kindergarten
to SS3 in every community across the
land to ensure that no child is left
behind.
“No child should go to school without a
computer. No child should go to school
without shoes. No child should travel
more than half a mile to attend school.
No child should go to school hungry and
no child should return from school
hungry.
“We will restore the dignity and prestige
of teachers. We will restore the past glory
of our teacher training institutes.
“To the youth of this country, I have a
new deal for you. When you pass JAMB,
you will take your admission letter to an
education bank which I will establish to
get an education loan to attend any
higher institution of your choice and you
will have 20 years post-graduation to pay
it back.
“It is absolutely imperative that this
happens very quickly as our young men
now enter universities hoping they will
figure out a way to get through school
while our young girls have already
figured it out.
“Agriculture has a very long value chain
and is most suitable for mass job
creation. Thailand for example cultivates
9.3 million hectares of land for rice alone
and they have cured unemployment
which now stands at 0.062 percent.
Nigeria has 83 million hectares of land,
almost double the size of Thailand. If
Thailand can cure unemployment, so can
we.
“Each hectare cultivated for rice can
provide 15 jobs down the value chain
from land preparation, to planting,
weeding, harvesting, loading, milling,
polishing, bagging, transportation,
warehousing, banking, etc. I have a plan
to cultivate 3 million hectares across 26
rice producing states over a 4-year
period and create over 45 million jobs
for our teeming youth population.
“We import 95% of the sugar we
consume in this country, whereas, all we
need to do is cultivate 250,000 hectares
of sugarcane to become sugar sufficient
and create hundreds of thousands of
new jobs for our people.
“Nigeria which used to be a leading
exporter of Cocoa now produces a mere
200,000 tonnes annually versus Ivory
Coast which produces over 3 Million
tonnes. We must get back on the top.
This time we will add value by making
chocolates for export.
“In recent years, the United Arab
Emirates and several countries in the
Gulf Region have been touring the world
in search of land to grow food for
exclusive export to their country. We will
go out and get their business. Nigeria will
not only become self-sufficient in food
production under my administration, we
will also become net exporters of food.
“We spend $15Billion every year to
import rice, wheat, sugar and fish all of
which we can grow and produce here.
We can save $15Billion used to import
food yearly and gain foreign exchange by
becoming a net exporter instead. This
way, we will have money to fund
education and build local infrastructure.
“We will deregulate the oil Industry
completely and encourage the
proliferation of small refineries to meet
our local demand. We will help the illegal
refineries become legal by helping them
build capacity and helping them to
develop the right tools to do a better
job…
“Revitalisation of Ajaokuta and all the
Steel Rolling Mills to launch Nigeria into
the industrial age will be a cornerstone
of my administration. This will put
Nigeria in a position to build ships, cars,
armored tanks, caterpillars, helicopters
and planes.
“Ajaokuta can employ about two million
people when completed. For every steel
job, 3 more jobs will be created in other
sectors. For example, every car has
33,000 individual parts. We can easily
become the spare parts capital of the
world and start to export car parts to the
world.
“The solution to our power problems lies
in localisation. If I live in Surulere, I do
not need power transmitted to me from
Afam Power station. I need a company to
come to Surulere and generate 10MW to
serve Surulere. Let them build a local
grid and run cables to my home.
Ovienmhada is disadvantaged as being
an “untested” aspirant and so may
witness several roadblocks by the
establishment. But, if the voting
population can connect with his
manifesto, and the general election next
year is free and fair as being promised
by Jonathan, then he may have a
chance.
Also, the need to forestall a
disintegration of the country by voting an
alternative president could spur the
masses on his side.