Dubembiafra:
Its a lie

Osasnidas:
Ok another tentacle of the rotten polictical hydra system of nigeria

Demolaeby:
Someone should help and summarise

InvestorO:
This ones just want to collect the Election appearance fee,nothing else,Sure me die say them no go spend money to campaign

castrokins:
What Kind Of Literature Is This?

skimmy005:
APGA or LP

koolbe:
Fela is clear favourite to win the ANN primaries. He would go on to win the 2019 election if he's d consensus candidate of d coalition of young , non establishment presidential candidates.
I stand with Fela Durotoye for President!
I stand with ANN.

Enugu, Nigeria.

bilms:
How is your party planning to get to number one from the perceived number three positions it is now?

The two horses are on their way to death already. They are bleeding very horribly. They are both APC and PDP. One thing that is interesting is that you have almost 10 million voters who are going to be voting for the first time in Nigeria. Most of them are not followers of these two horses you are talking about. In fact, they are the crop of people who ordinarily were not showing interest in politics, who are incensed by the shenanigans of those two major parties, that they don’t want to vote for either of these parties. These are the first line of support for the ANN. In a three-way race, if you start with 70 percent of that vote, you are already halfway through and you can do your research. These ones are unlikely to vote for PDP or APC. So, that is the starting point.

Then, you have a number of patriotic people even in the APC and PDP who have been trapped in that politics and these people have been given the impression that it’s either this one or that one. But the ANN is offering a ray of hope that captures their imagination. They are already leaving the two parties in droves. Ordinarily, a lot of Nigerians are forward looking and they are really yearning for a new Nigeria, a new polity. You can also do your independent findings. If you try to find out who these people are likely to vote for, you will see that majority of electorates, apart from those who make a living of politics, are not interested in APC or PDP.

What is this programme or the ideology of the ANN that you profess?

Number one, you will see that majority of the people in ANN are people who have something they are doing with their hands. They are not professional politicians who live on politics. The party believes in productive engagement. That is number one and consequently, the focus of the party is not to distribute handouts, but to make sure that we have sustainable employment that is tied to industry, that is tied to manufacturing. Job is central to that. Creative people who are utilizing their creative energy to make value for society is central to that. These are the kinds of people you want to encourage in politics. They are the kinds of people you want to use your political platform to empower.

Then we want a Nigeria that is not going to be driven on the basis of ethnicity or religious bigotry. We want a Nigeria where merit will determine a lot of things that will drive the values that society runs on. These are things that are quite different. That’s not what you see in the two biggest parties in Nigeria. Anytime they are talking, it’s about zoning; it’s about whether the President is going to be from the South or from the East and all that.

That is the conversation all the time. There is no serious focus on how do we grow infrastructure. There is no conversation on how do we create jobs. There is no conversation on how do we expand the GDP and the economy. That’s not the conversation. Their conversation is who is leaving the PDP tomorrow for APC; what is the next permutation. That is all the conversation and that is nonsense, bunkum. Nigeria’s conversation about politics should be about jobs, about economy and that is when people cannot escape responsibilities. But when you make the conversation all about religion and all that, these are inanities and lot of people can run away with a lot of things. It’s that conversation that has fowled the atmosphere so much now and you see criminals who should be in jail will escape with the loot because when you want to arrest them, they will say I’m from this corner or that corner. Then people from their village will go and make a public display that they are persecuting our son because the whole conversation is about ethnicity. So, it makes nonsense of anti-corruption. It makes nonsense of failure in governance. But when you elevate the issues, then people cannot hide and escape the consequences of their criminal actions.

You have put a lot of energy in reorganizing the ANN, if you don’t get the presidential ticket, what will you do?

I will still continue in ANN. But members of ANN are not stupid. They want to put their best foot forward for Nigerians so that the party can win and that is what we are working hard on.

How can your party match the level of vote buying we have seen in recent elections?

That is a job for all of us, including the media. But the level of poverty in the country encourages it. I also think that those who have stolen a lot of money from government also encourage it. So, once you de-market certain categories of people and that is the job of all of us, I think the vote buying will reduce, especially de-marketing them by making the election about issues. But when the choices are not very sharp, or when the differences in the political platform are not clear, then the electorate will say they are the same; why should I choose one over the other, except the one that offers me something because there is no difference between APC and PDP. Tell me why anybody should prefer PDP to APC? There is no reason to be honest with you. So, that’s an incentive for vote buying, when there is no difference between the political parties. But when there is a clear difference, I think the scope of vote buying will become narrower.

Is that why you call yourselves technoticians? Can you explain?

That’s a term in ANN. It means basically technocrats, lawyers, doctors, professionals who are also interested in politics. That is that slang in ANN. If I want to make it simpler, it’s people who have something they are doing with their hands.

Do you see your ambition being hampered in one way or the other by the so called issues of politics, which you called shenanigans of politics, zoning, ethnicity, which appear still widespread right now?

I don’t see how my ambition is limited by that. If anything at all, I think Nigerians want a truly Nigerian President. So I don’t see how that limits me. It only helps in a period of great division. Nigerians need at this point a President that will be a true Commander in Chief of all Nigerians regardless of where they come from or regardless of their State. That is the President that Nigerians need and that person is me.

ENDS