Nigeria requires fresh, patriotic perspectives in 2023 ― Olawepo-Hashim

A former presidential candidate Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, says Nigeria needs a fresh and patriotic perspective in the search for who leads the country in 2023.

He stated in a statement issued by his media office in Abuja on Wednesday and emailed to Tribune Online that national ailments such as insecurity, unemployment, poverty and infrastructure decay that constituted core challenges confronting Nigeria, could not be solved by politics as usual, but through fresh and critical thinking.

He maintained that the brand of politics without ideas that is centred on selfishness, propelled by greed, mediocrity and sycophancy must give way for the country to regain its greatness.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) stalwart added that politics must be rescued from the stranglehold of the corrupt and the inept who have in the past 20 years developed audacity and a sense of entitlement to rule.

In line with President Buhari’s remark in Abuja recently that ”there are many among our elite for whom profit remains the only motivation for any and every enterprise”, Olawepo-Hashim lamented: “Sadly, our politics has declined from one predominantly driven by public interests and developmental objectives in the First Republic to one that is largely anchored around parochial and self-interests of politicians, and narrow interest groups, which has brought only backwardness to the people and disorderliness to our country.”

According to him, 2022 is the decision year, not 2023 when voters will elect their president, senators, representatives, governors and Assembly members.

“2022 is when standard-bearers of political parties will emerge, and once that process is completed, it becomes easier to predict who will be what. 80% of the decision would already have been made,” he added.

Thirteen months to the presidential election, not less than fifteen aspirants across various parties and geo-political zones, have directly or by proxy, signified their intentions to enter the ring for the 2023 presidential contest.

He lamented that despite the hype in the media, “the planning and permutations by the various power centres are not about national interest or development.

“It is not about how to grow the economy and bring prosperity; not about how to secure the country; not about how to give jobs to the teeming youths, but how to grab power and then wonder how to rule later. In a democracy, elected officials should be servants of the people, not their overlords.”

Olawepo-Hashim enjoined every adult Nigerian to stand up to be counted as 80 per cent of the decisions concerning the political future of Nigeria will be taken as parties head for their primaries.

Nigerian elite, he said, must be more responsible, the middle class must be more transformative and move out of their comfort zone to be more empathetic and connect with the abject condition of down-trodden, who are over 60 per cent of the population.

He equally maintained that at this point in the nation’s history, “we need leaders not, rulers. We need patriots and national unifiers, not tribalists. We need modernisers and not those who will take us deeper backwards into darkness.

“Our ancestors built a democracy that in eleven years, became one of the best examples in Asia and Africa. My generation ended the military rule that aborted the dream of our founding fathers of the First Republic.”

“Therefore, we can also put an end to the reign of the political locusts that are making nonsense of our hard-won democracy.”

Noting that the country might not get standard-bearers who are saints, Olawepo-Hashim counselled: “We can at least insist that politicians with proven records of corruption cannot lead us. We can also insist that politicians who see themselves as our emperors, and the rest of us as their vassals, will further endanger our democracy. We must insist that we are citizens not subjects.”

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