As race for the 2023 general election hots up, a chieftain of All Progressives Congress (APC) from Borno State, Dr Ibrahim Bello Dauda has joined the Presidential race.
He disclosed this on Thursday in Abuja while speaking to Journalists in Abuja.
Ibrahim pledged to provide credible leadership devoid of sentiments, negative emotions and vested interest if voted as President come 2023.
He added that there would be no agitations in Nigeria if there is a system that would promote justice, equity and fairness.
He said “I joined the race to put forward my vision for Nigeria and provide credible leadership devoid of sentiments, negative emotion, selfish interest and with fear of God.
“What we are going through now when you talk of insecurity and economic problem, they are not major problems. The major problem we have is the leadership that is be- clouded with these things I have mentioned. It is either is termed sentiments on the one side, emotional on the other side or it is serving the selfish interest.
“We need a leadership that is free of all these, meaning there will be justice, equity and fairness. When you put these on the system there will not be agitations,” Ibrahim said.
The Presidential aspirant promised to redirect what he observed as the vast energies of youths to productive ventures and develop entrepreneurs and remove erected bottlenecks in accessing funding.
He said if elected President, his administration would not create jobs but to develop entrepreneurs, stressing that creating jobs would lead to creation of army of people into public service and the bulk of money made through Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) would be used to pay salaries.
According to him: “We are going to shift from job creation to entrepreneurs development where our majority of youths will be trained and their energy will be redirected toward private sector.
“We are going to be liberalising and opening the economy in such a away that average Nigerian will have opportunity as long as you have ideas without need to bribe your way or look for god father. All you need to do as Nigerian is to have positive ideas of what to do and the government will provide enabling environment and supporting infrastructures and facilities.
“Entrepreneurs will produce goods and services which will be added to the pool of what we have in the market.
“We are going to reverse the issue of balance of trade and set up commodity and exchange centers.”
He also pledged to harness the tourism and hospitality sector potentials in a way that would make reduce reliance on oil.
He noted that there is need to be creative on creating alternative in funding adding that demand for fossil oil would be reduced with the world moving to electric vehicles as a result of technology
He said: “I have come face to face with both governance, politics and private practice. Nigeria is blessed with tourism potentials and more than 70% are untapped. When you stabilise the security you create an enabling environment.
“We are going to do holistic survey and acquire data in real terms of all our hospitality industries area going from one local government to another in 774 local government in order to identify each potential to create a national verifiable catalogue of hospitality and tourism sites in Nigeria.”
Ibrahim stressed that his government would create bank that would manage tourism by providing and attracting funding in such a way that would make it the hub of economy.
While highlighting his agenda on security, Ibrahim said there would be holistic overview of the security architecture of the country with the aim of finding the root cause of the problem.
He stated that the current approach is reactionary instead of preventive.
“A holistic overview of our security architecture to find the cause of the problem. Because removing the cause of the problem will remove the problem. What we ere doing is more reactionary process rather than preventive process.”
The presidential aspirant also promised to look at the trade in relation to foreign policy and reverse balance of trade where Nigeria would be a net exporter not an importer.
He also promised to reverse health tourism if elected as president.
Ibrahim hailed from Shani local government of Borno State and he schooled in Jos and Kaduna. He read accountancy and he is currently managing a private management consultancy firm in Abuja.