Dumebi Kachikwu, the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), says he is still featuring in the 25 February presidential election in spite of the leadership crisis rocking his party.
Mr Kachikwu stated this at the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum in Abuja.
Giving a background of the crisis rocking the ADC, Mr Kachikwu said the erstwhile chairman, Ralph Nwosu, refused to let go after the expiration of his tenure.
“Justice Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court had in December 2022 ruled that the tenure of the erstwhile chairman had lapsed.
“He (Nwosu) had been there close to 17 years and it is that kind of party where every four years they bring people like me to the party. And a few days to the election they will announce an alignment.
“When it became clear to the people that I wanted to run an election, they started fighting me. Unfortunately while the man was fighting me, he forgot his tenure had lapsed.
“I told him that his tenure had lapsed. I said to him I’m not running because I’m an Igbo man. I don’t believe in all of these things. I believe the only way Nigeria can work is if we look at Nigeria as a nation for everybody,” he said.
Mr Kachikwu added, “I stood by the party’s constitution. The chairman went to court, the court ruled, they didn’t even have any defence in court because the constitution is very clear.
“As of today, I have not one agent in an election that is holding in a few days.
“I’m still in the race, I will stay in the race till the very end because there are people who will come after me who must understand that doing the right thing is costly to you but it is the best thing to do.”
Tasks INEC on free, fair election
Mr Kachikwu called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to deliver a free, fair and credible election on Saturday.
He said with the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), the electoral umpire should guarantee Nigerians, a free, fair and credible election.
On the efficiency of the BVAS, Mr Kachikwu said the credibility of the polls was not so much on the device but about the integrity of the staff members who will conduct the election.
“It is never about technology but about the people, their integrity. It’s about having people who understand that it’s their patriotic duty to do things right.
“It’s about the people who are working with that technology,” he said.
He also urged the commission to be guided by the Electoral Act, 2022 during the polls.
Mr Kachikwu promised to grant Local Government autonomy and also allow the establishment of State Police if elected on Saturday.
He people have a misconceived notion that state policing would benefit one ethnic group more than the other, or that people would take advantage of it.
“If you speak of state policing today, those in the federal structure will believe that the state governments will use it to garner more power.
“However, state policing is far more efficient policing.
“As a president of Nigeria what I will do, first of all, understanding that we are a multicultural, multi ethnic society; so to deal with state policing in a gradual manner, I will ensure that those who are Divisional Police Officer (DPOs) are from the senatorial districts.
“We will do this for a period of five years before we can then start taking and ensuring that we have people who can be elected as police chiefs in our different local governments.”
Mr Kachikwu said state policing would be structured in such a way that the police would be answerable to the people.
“We appreciate President Muhammadu Buhari for his moves to ensure that the local governments get autonomy. But some state governments are fighting this.
“Until we begin to obey the principles of our Constitution and ensure that we have three arms of government, Nigeria cannot develop.
“The local governments we have today still see themselves as errand boys to the state governors. They don’t understand that they are governments on their own.”
Mr Kachikwu said local government were established to take development down to the innermost parts of Nigeria.
“People do not understand the three-tiers of government so they will not support it. But I will reverse this if elected president.
The ADC presidential candidate pledged to revamp the economy, provide jobs and tackle poverty if elected president.
“There is a need to take these measures to tackle the rising poverty index and empower Nigerians to be economically stable.
“I must redefine what the nation must do to support our weak, poor and helpless.
“What we can do is to provide social support infrastructure to help these people. We must build an economy that will ensure that these people do not fall into that poverty bracket.
“I tell you this, the greatest assets of the Nigerian nation are the people. If you look at developed nations, because they understand that their people are their greatest asset, what do they do? They ensure that their people thrive because only when a people thrive can they contribute meaningfully to the economy of a nation.
“There are 60 million odd Nigerians who are not working right now. Unemployed. Imagine if those people were gainfully employed and they’re contributing N5,000 each in taxes to the coffers of our nation.
“Can you imagine what that will do for our nation? So we need to support our people to get back to work.
“If you look at countries around us like the Republic of Benin, Ghana, Niger and others, they are sending what we call low-skilled workers to Nigeria. These people come from other nations to work and we employ them before we employ Nigerians because we see their skill sets as better?
“We need to start activating our technical schools. We need to start retraining and retooling our people in that segment, so we can start exporting workforce to the rest of Africa.”
Mr Kachikwu said that there was a need to start understanding that in an import dependent economy, the greatest threat to citizens and economic survival remained the ports.
“We still have close to N10 billion of the fraud and corruption going on there, that translates to the inflation you see in the economy.
“Imagine most of our relations, who say they want to do business, someone wants to bring in a container of hair.
“Before you finish, you know that someone will take a bribe of three to five million for that container, imagine how that translates into inflation in the final cost?
“We must take away all these things that militate against business so that we can start making business work for those who are involved in business.”
Mr Kachikwu said that he would build infrastructure platforms and ensure affordable internet where people could stay in the comfort of their homes and sell their services to other parts of the world.
He said Nigerian citizens would not have to work for anyone, all they need was good internet access.
“Internet access is a privilege and not a right. As president of Nigeria, I will ensure that Nigerians have Affordable Internet access as a right in the year 2023,” he said.
Mr Kachikwu said he would review Nigeria’s external debt if elected.
He said Nigeria was indebted because of “some unpatriotic elements.”
“We have people who have collected their boarding passes; raised check out of this world who are taking debts and loans on behalf of the future generations.
“They have nothing at stake by taking these loans. They know that you will pay, our children will pay and they will not be here. So they get a kickback from the loans they take.
“I will ensure that I review every debt; those that were not properly done will be renegotiated with a view to paying those debts.
“But debts that are properly gotten will be paid. So we will negotiate debts so we have a longer period of time to pay the debts. I will start ensuring that the economy is doing better.”
Mr Kachikwu further said that he would also get the 60 million “odd people” who are not working to start working.
“I will ensure that Nigeria becomes the industrial powerhouse of the world.
“China said to themselves, we want to be the industrial powerhouse of the world, they did that.
“We must say to ourselves, what do we want to be known for in the year 2023? What’s the future of Nigeria because when you define your vision, that’s when you can plan for that vision.
“When we say that this is what we want to do, this is when we can align our educational plan which is the basis of what we are doing to the vision that we have.”
He said when all these were done and when the country realised that the people were the greatest asset and when the middle class was built to a robust level, then there would be a multiplier effect on the country.
“Once we have more people working and we start generating more revenue from taxation and from individuals and from businesses, we are in a better position to pay our legitimate debts,” Mr Kachikwu said.
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