Nigeria, currently suffers serious strangulation in all facets of its development that it should ordinarily bloom, Presidential Candidate on the Platform of the deregistered Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party (ANRP), Tope Fasua has said.
Fasua told the Tribune Online in an exclusive interview that Nigeria is desperately in need of phenomenal push of the countrymen towards nation-building and good governance.
He said the political class irrespective of their political party have succeeded in strangulating the nation’s political space with her ilks who have less interest in building the country.
Fasua who maintained that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are two sides of fraudulent political sides said as long as these parties continue to dominate the national and sub-national political space, Nigeria will not make any headway.
According to Fasua, the recent defection of the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara from the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, speaks to the fact that nation’s polity is indeed strangulated.
He said the political situation has become one of ‘hopelessness’ even in the mind of young Nigerians, this he said has been compounded by the less access to economic activities following the impact of COVID-19.
The Presidential candidate said the political space has been so limited that besides deregistration of political parties by the ruling party, stringent rules have been emplaced to make it difficult for new political parties to come inboard.
He said the nation’s brightest minds must wake up to chart a new course for the country because it would be dangerous to toy with the economy in view of a huge global downturn of economic activities and economies.
“Both PDP and APC are two sides of a fraudulent Coin, they are just in politics to grab power,” he told Tribune Online in an exclusive interview.
Fasua said something different must happen to affect political, economic and social change in the country
“It actually gives an impression in the mind of the young people that there is no hope in Nigeria anymore except if you cannot beat them, you join them kind of a thing.
“Obviously we cannot be them, that is why we have to join them and when we join them and do it the way they have been doing it and when you get there, you grab your way and you can see in a season of low resources, a season of pandemic and COVID-19, where the world is expecting a huge downturn in economic activities; is not the time for us to toy with our politics in this manner.
“Unfortunately that is what we are doing and the mind of our young people are being abused, hope is taken away from them, that it could come to something radical and clean without having to be coopted to follow the terrible ways of the current political class.
“That is what this defection means, Dogara running back also means that he has been out in the cold in his own view.
“The Dichotomy between the APC and PDP is not there whatsoever they do not have any difference in their ideology; in fact, everybody in APC has been from PDP like Amaechi and the rest, they were in PDP but have shifted to the political power place of today.
“I have always argued that we cannot use these two parties as our main political party, something different has to happen,” Fasua told Tribune Online in a phone interview.
Commenting on the Edo Election, the former Presidential candidate in 2019 said, neither Gov., Godwin Obaseki of the (PDP) nor his strongest opponent on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu in the race to Osadebey Avenue is qualified to lead Edo state.
Fasua argued that both men have been publicly X-rayed by the former chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress, Adams Oshiomhole in his comments on their persons and competences this exposing the two fraudulent sides of the All Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party.
His words: “I will not be surprised if Obaseki wins in Edo state he may run back to the APC because that is where the power is.
“You see what is happening in Edo state now, Obaseki ran to PDP while Ize-Iyamu ran back to APC. Look at the things that have been said about the two people by Oshiomhole alone who is acting the Godfather are very nasty things about the two candidates which make them both unelectable.
“That should also project on the party themselves showing that the APC and the PDP are but a scourge themselves to the soul of this nation.
“You can also see that the ruling All Progressives Party is a very vicious government which has moved against the existence of other alternatives by ruining our judiciary and using the Independent National Electoral Commission to take the licenses of the small parties that are trying to express themselves and they are also going to make it a lot more difficult to register new parties.
ALSO READ: Obaseki, Ize-Iyamu families support rival candidates in Edo poll
He explained that the only way to build internal democracy, advance good governance and boost national Democratic ethos would be when Nigerian politicians stick to ideology and remain with their political party on conviction, not for political powers.
He cited examples of the practices of party membership and democracy in the UK and the United States as places with Democratic credentials to emulate.
Fasua said: “You can’t see people wake up and run that they are leaving Republican party for Democrat because once you are a Republican you remain a Republican; if Democrat, you remain a Democrat!
“In the UK you cannot see that happen between the Tories and Labour. You cannot be a Labour man today and tommorow a Tory.
“In fact, we have not started here in Nigeria; let us state it, we do not have a political system yet. We are just jerking until something knocks us to bring us back to our senses politically to address the national and sub-national concern.
Speaking further on the phenomenal touch he believed would be the only solution to the bandwagon kind of politics played in Nigeria Fasua told the Tribune Online that the touch would be revolutionary, even when it is yet known.
Fasua in the phone interview said: “There are things that are described as known-known, these are things that, when you are woken at the middle of the night to state them you know them. For instance, your name, school you graduated from, lecturers and professors that taught you.
“Unknown-known which if you are reminded, you recalled them; then there are the unknown-unknown. These are the things you know you are not aware of. For me, I know, I do not know anything in nuclear physics, I am sure I do not know it.
“Where the rift is and, sometimes, The things that actually upset the African and re-set everybody’s brain are things that are not known. I am waiting for that Unknown-Unknown. Is a thing that is going to shock everybody, I do not know where that is going to come out from but it is what we need in this country,” He said.