2019: Groups advance criteria for Presidency

A Coalition of Christian Groups in Nigeria and Diaspora for Good Governance has advanced criteria for Nigeria’s next president to save the country from years of misrule.

While addressing newsmen at the end of the meeting in Abuja on Tuesday one of the conveners, Prof. Adeniyi Ojukitu noted that Nigeria had seriously suffered from misrule over the years.

He said that the suffering had led to the destruction of lives and property, corruption nepotism and other vices which had impeded on the growth of the country.

“Our desire to have the opportunity of actively participating in Nigeria’s democracy remains unattended by successive governments.

“In spite of several Federal High Court judgments in support of exercising our Constitutional sovereign rights as Nigerian citizens from the convenience and comfort of our foreign countries of abode.

“It is on record that no modern country achieves quantum leap in development without the active solicitation and policy-driven enabled participation of its Diaspora.

“India and China stand today as glaring examples of countries whose economies were revolutionised by returning U. S. and western-trained engineers, IT specialists, physicians, economists, science graduates, educationists, and other Diaspora educated technocrats.

“Therefore, we in the Diaspora are now fully resolved that we can no longer stand by on the sidelines and watch our dear country continue to wobble, falter and degenerate into the Banana Republic of anarchy and utter poor leadership,” he said.

Listing the criteria they need in the incoming president, Ojukitu said: “our ideal president will not allow the ethnic or religious bigotry, domination by a preferred tribe or religion (born-to-rule), knowing full well the plight of ethnic and religious minorities across Nigeria.

“Our ideal president must have, over the years, demonstrated a commitment to promoting ethnic and religious inclusivity, tolerance and harmony, going beyond the call of duty to form bridges across ethnic and religious boundaries.

“Our ideal president must commit to stopping the systematic bleeding of our economy and the selling of Nigeria to China through infrastructural loans with the inherent programming for Nigeria to default and Chinese to take over as exemplified by Chinese loan default of some African countries.

“Our ideal candidate for president must be one who has a demonstrated track record of managing a state and or national economy, leaving behind billions of Naira in budgetary surpluses after successfully governing and leaving office.

“He will have no record of the indictment or questionable past by local and or foreign governments for improprieties while in office.

“Our ideal candidate for president must have demonstrable ability to comprehend extremely complex issues of national and global dimensions.

“He or she must be able to interface and actively engage with intellectuals from all professional disciplines, and policy experts locally and internationally.”

He said, “every Nigerian should avoid succumbing to the mere electioneering propaganda and sloganeering of today.

“We all should do our due diligence of all the presidential candidates based on these criteria and come up with our own choice for president, especially for such precarious time as now,’’ he said.