By Nsan Ndoma-Neji, Calabar
A group of Nigerian elites, operating under the aegis of Abubakar Bukola Saraki Contact and Advocacy Council, has chastised those managing the machinery of government for squandering 90 per cent of the nation’s resources without achieving anything.
The group, which consist of academics, dons and seasoned politicians, like former governor of Kwara State, Senator Shaaba Lafiagi, Engr. Hassan Hussein, and Prof. Iyorwuese Hagher, stormed the city of Calabar, to campaign for the candidature of Senator Bukola Saraki ahead of the 2023 presidential election.
The group stated that with Saraki at the helms of affairs in 2023, the problem of insecurity, which has bedeviled the nation in the last seven years can be fixed.
The group’s chairman, who was one-time lawmaker at the upper chamber of the National Assembly, a former Minister of Power and Steel, and one-time Nigeria’s Ambassador to Mexico, Prof. Iyorwuese Hagher, while explaining the reason for the group’s visitation to the Peoples Demicratic Party, PDP, secretariat in Calabar on Friday, lamented how about $500 trillion has been squandered by the nation’s rulling class without any tangible thing or achievement to point at.
Stressing that only three million Nigerians, including the country’s President and the Vice President, lawmakers of states and National Assembly and the local government councils are the ones consuming over 90 per cent of the nation’s resources, Hagher enumerated the problems that the nation had been facing in the last seven years to include poor leadership and insecurity problems, which if not properly tackled, would lead to more economic hardship for the citizenry.
He said, “We have been victims of broken promises and we have failed in all the things that would make us a great nation.
“The biggest failure of Nigeria is in not providing the correct leadership that will harness the resources of the country for the betterment of the entire country.
“Today we have less than three million Nigerians consuming 90 per cent of the country’s revenue and we are the only country that has managed to waste $500 trillion by successive administrations.
“If Saraki’s presidential ambition comes to fruitrition in 2023, all sectors of the nation’s economy, which is almost at the verge of collapsing, would be turned around and repositioned for better productivity.
“Bukola Saraki is highly educated. We cannot put an insensitive person in such a position of authority. But a person who, when you rejoice, he rejoices with you.
“We are not a monarchy. We want a young man who has the link between the young and old. He is also somebody who have practicalised the 35 percent affirmative action.
“For us in the PDP, the women are always in the same room with us. With Saraki, women will take thier right place of pride.
“As a governor, the women took their 35 percent affirmative action. He will give Nigeria unity and in a proper position to stand for the oppressed.
“As I speak to you now, all our leaders have been blindfolded. Bukola is here to allay your fears, assuage to your pains.”
On the issue of zoning, the chairman decried how zoning has been abused by the political class, stressing that the opposition All Progressives Congress, APC, remains the biggest beneficiary of the old PDP.
He boasted that the PDP has remained the political fulcrum of the country and now is the turn of the North Central to produce the President of the country.
He added, “The North West had been President and Vice President of the country. The only place that is yet to benefit from zoning and where that opportunity should go to now is the North Central.”
Other members of the council, who accompanied the chairman, include the secretary, Dr. Ahmadu Musa and Alhaji Aliyu Maigari. Others are: Senator Lafiagi, Engr. Hassan Husseini, MNI, Prince Olateru Lekan, Comrade Judith Bindi, Moses Aliyu and Comrade David Itopa.
In his remarks, the Cross River State Chairman of the PDP, Barr. Venatius Ikem, stressed that Cross River State remains a PDP state come rain, come shine, and vowed to work towards the enthronement of a PDP President, who can transform the country to a better nation.
