April 17, (THEWILL) – As many of us agree, the 2023 presidential election is a make or break poll for our country. I will go straight to the point so that I don’t deviate from the very important message I intend to pass on to the key stakeholders and decision makers in the two main political parties – the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP); that presidential power must shift to the Igbo for peace, harmony, economic progress and ultimate unity and stability of the country.
Ahead of the 2015 general election, the handlers of the electioneering campaign of former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan embarked on a series of television advertisements that compared the leadership of their principal to the manner of leadership exhibited by a number of visionary and iconic political statesmen, who led by uncharacteristic transparency, unflagging passion, unfiltered integrity and incredible courage. Chief among these leaders, identified as a paragon after which Jonathan styled his own leadership direction, was Lee Kuan Yew, the Singaporean statesman and lawyer widely regarded as the father of modern day Singapore.
The reason I am revisiting this campaign decision by the Jonathan campaign organisation is because the primary elections to choose the parties presidential candidates for the parties will be conducted in about six weeks and, as usual, I want to be at the forefront of the national discourse about the type of candidate they ought to be putting forward in canvassing votes from Nigerians. I believe it is a duty and responsibility to the nation that as a newspaper publisher and columnist, I submit an archetypical standard to which the parties can aspire in selecting their flagbearers.
The choice of Lee Kuan Yew (LKY) in 2014, as an example of the kind of leadership Nigeria sorely needed, while promoting Jonathan’s candidature, was apt. This is because of the outstanding qualities, which endeared LKY to most people, if not all, his exemplary leadership that brought about progress in a country where it was desperately needed and living long enough to see the fruits of his stewardship come alive. Such was his charismatic leadership that LKY oversaw the country’s transformation into a developed nation with a high-income economy in a single generation. He created a highly successful anti-corruption government and a civil service in the process. LKY eschewed populist policies in favour of long-term social and economic planning, championing meritocracy and multiracialism as governing principles.
Presiding over Singapore’s advancement from 1959 to 1990, LKY oversaw his country’s metamorphosis from an island nation with a high illiteracy rate and no natural resources to a developed country with a high-income economy because of an ability to unite the country behind his objectives. This helped to see Singapore’s Gross Domestic Product per capita rise from $1,240 in 1959 to $18,437 in 1990. The unemployment rate in Singapore dropped from 13.5 per cent in 1959 to 1.7 percent in 1990. External trade increased from $7.3 billion in 1959 to $205 billion in 1990. In other areas, life expectancy at birth for Singaporeans rose from 65 years in 1960 to 74 years in 1990. The Singaporean literacy rate increased from 52 per cent in 1957 to 90 percent in 1990.
The truth was that Lee’s stewardship of public administration through relevant and targeted public policy demonstrated that he understood how the economy worked, knew that increased productivity translated to increased wealth for the country. With the right people delegated to handle areas of their strengths, who shared LKY’s economic blueprint, these economic accomplishments were quickly achieved. LKY introduced measures to jumpstart manufacturing of finished goods for export (export-oriented industrialisation) and sought to create a conducive business environment to attract foreign direct investment (through the establishment of the Economic Development Board). This is the model that the Central Bank of Nigeria under the leadership of Godwin Emefiele, coincidentally an Igbo from Delta State, is adopting with its multiple programmes to increase local manufacturing and export.
The Igbo have their ancestral origin in the South-East (Anambra, Enugu, Abia, Imo and Ebonyi States) and the South- South (Rivers and Delta States.) The Igbo are known to be highly skilled entrepreneurs, wealth creators, smart, intelligent and enterprising in business, banking and commerce.
There are many notable people in the South-East, who have a good track record of excellence in both the public and private sectors. They can be Nigeria’s own version of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew, who can effectively manage and transform the nation’s economy into a powerhouse. Three of the five biggest banks – Zenith, UBA and Access – are owned by Igbos. Air Peace, the largest airline in the country, is owned by an Igbo.
As LKY worked, he went further to forge a mutually dependent relationship between his party, the People’s Action Party, and the National Trades Union Congress. The advantage of this was that the governing political party received certain inputs from the labour grassroots, which are in direct contact with the people and can directly translate the people’s wishes to government without intermediaries that may keep it from reaching the centre of power. The government’s tight control over trade union activities and industrial relations, ensured a near-total industrial peace that was assessed to be a prerequisite for rapid economic development, which the country witnessed during his tenure as Prime Minister and beyond.
The foregoing meant that during the period LKY held office, Singapore grew from a developing country to one of the most developed nations in Asia and the world. He himself revealed that Singapore’s only natural resources were its people and their strong work ethic, which his government relied upon to drive their objective to move the country forward. In addition, LKY was focused on social policies, such as improving and mandating higher public standards for education, sanitation and hygiene, while concurrently improving public health by expanding modern health care and greatly increasing the quantity and quality of affordable high-rise housing (through the establishment of the Housing and Development Board) for both working class and middle-class families.
The question to ask at this point is where is the Nigerian variant among the Igbo in the mould of an LKY that can bring that mindset of benevolent leadership to governance at the centre and whom the political parties can put on the ballot in the next elections? Where is the determined candidate that can marshal the material, human and financial resources to take the country from the very precipice of retrogression to the heights that Nigeria deserves with the natural and human wealth with which she is fortunately endowed? If the parties can lend me their ears, I have a tripartite set of requirements that they can apply to unearth the gemstone of any such candidate in their membership ahead of the conventions that will pick their flagbearers.
The first criterion that is a prerequisite for anyone seeking to take the country forward is that he or she should be charismatic enough to unite the country behind his or her administration. There may never be overall consensus on national issues, but such a candidate must be able to carry the majority of favourable public opinion, which is expected to grow as the popular support is won over by sincerity of purpose, clarity of direction and alignment with the needs of the people at the grassroots. This is of utmost and prime importance and the most critical of all qualities because it is the most foundational as everything else stands on it or collapses. Without unity, there cannot be appreciable progress and all plans of development will stall and eventually fizzle out to naught. The parties must look critically at their rank and file to pick a candidate, a broad unifier that will satisfy to a high degree the tribal, religious and economic interests/sentiments in our country and govern the country by putting the country and its collective people first at all times.
As LKY clearly established, a sound economic grounding will go a long way in bringing about the type of progress that will change the destiny of any nation within a generation. A candidate who knows that jump-starting local manufacturing of finished goods for use at home, combined with an export-oriented industrialisation that will move Nigerian-made goods abroad, while creating an enabling environment for business to thrive, is the exact candidate that the parties should put forward. Such a candidate will also be well versed in attracting foreign direct investment to the country. He or she will set priorities on boosting productivity and removing obstacles to wide scale industrialization, such as constant power supply, excellent road networks, incentivised tax regimes, free trade zones and Diasporan collaboration.
Thirdly and by no means the least, let me reiterate that this candidate should come from the Igbo-speaking part of the country. It is outright marginalisation that, since the Nigerian Civil War ended in January 15, 1970, the only major region yet to take charge at the centre is the South-East. The Hausa of the North and the Yoruba of the South-West have had several stints in the presidency, but the Igbo have consistently been denied an opportunity to become president. At every occasion, the major political parties have made moves that have pushed their members of Igbo extraction away from consideration. Little wonder the agitation for a breakaway republic of their own gains momentum with every political cycle where this marginalisation plays out over and over again. To quell the drive for Biafra, therefore, I hold that an Igbo candidate that qualifies as a unifier and armed with the ability to operate a buoyant economy will be a game-changer for Nigeria. It means that we will all be on the path to greater prosperity, especially if this candidate has the willpower to take on Nigeria’s hydra-headed problems frontally and bring about well-thought out solutions to all that holds us down.
No nation prospers where there is disunity and discord. No nation or group does well when some constituents or parts feel aggrieved. The PDP and APC must field the best from Igboland in 2023 as their presidential candidate and allow Nigerians to make their preferred choice. The move by some desperate power seekers in the PDP to jettison the party’s zoning arrangement and present another Fulani from the North will only divide the country further. The tenure of President Muhammadu Buhari, a Fulani, ends next year after eight years in power. The only logic that makes sense is to transfer power to the Igbo in the interest of a united and progressive Nigeria.
