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2023 presidency: How far can Ohuabunwa go?

Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa is one of the aspirants seeking to fly the flag of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 presidential election. Having scaled the party’s screening exercise, ONYEKACHI EZE looks at his chances in the primary election

 

Mazi Sam Ohuabunwu, an industrialist and one of the presidential aspirants on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has scaled the first hurdle in his quest to secure the ticket of the party for next year’s election.

 

Ohuabunwa was one of the 15 aspirants cleared by the PDP Presidential Screening Committee to contest the May 28 primary. Despite the array of politicians in the race, most of them with huge financial war chest, Ohuabunwa believes he stands a better chance because he believes the office of president requires somebody with “experience in managing many things at the same time.”

 

According to him, the presidency is not for someone who takes six months to form his cabinet and “take another six months to plan how you are going to work. I have the experience. I have been trained. Secondly, to be able to discharge the functions of office as a president or governor, you need to have a healthy body. You need to have a healthy soul. You need to have a healthy spirit; body, mind and soul must be together to function in this office.

 

“That is why good companies succeed because they do not tolerate stories. For me, that is the experience you need to run a country, not necessarily chronological age. I am young in my heart, in my spirit, in my physique and my ability to do the job.” Like former Anambra State governor Peter Obi, Ohuabunwa’s campaign train has just one Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV), marked “Mazi Sam.”

 

There is no routine of praise singers and political jobbers jostling for attention in his entourage. He does not even command much media attention. When he declared his presidential ambition at the Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja in January 2021, Ohuabunwu said he was out to fill the void created by lack of visionary and experienced leadership in Nigeria. He further told his audience that “money is not the problem (of Nigeria) but the creativity to manage the money.

 

The job of governance is more of a CEO (chief executive officer). If you hire right people, you will have a good team. The problem is that we have leaders without vision. I am coming with skills, experience and network I have gathered. I have run political looking organisations before. I have been around.

 

I have served in several boards.” Before he stepped into the nation’s political space, Ohuabunwa, who is the leader of a political movement, New Nigeria Group (NNG), was president of Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), president of Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) as well as president of Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA).

 

At over 70 years of age, the industrialist turned politician is among aspirants many believe should have yielded space for younger ones. But he believes that “a young worldview is an exploratory worldview, a worldview that can entertain and accept large picture of the globe, be able to learn from each other, a mindset that is willing to try new things, to get into new opportunities.

 

There are many young people chronologically, but yet they behave and act like old people because of their vision, because of their worldview.” By all standards, Ohuabunwa is among the few aspirants in the race who cannot be regarded as “core politicians.”

 

That is why he equates governance with running a corporate organisation.

 

According to him, the job of the CEO is to motivate people to achieve result and if taken at the level of presidency, it is to set and sell the vision and appoint able and capable lieutenants to actualise the vision. But he warned that leaving people in the office when they are not achieving targets will hinder such vision.

 

As a private sector player, Ohuabunwa promised to take governance as a business to deliver appropriately to Nigerians, including the “four demons” which according to him have been milking Nigeria dry over the years.

 

These demons, he listed, include poverty, corruption, injustice and insecurity. His words: “I have offered to serve in the office of the president of Nigeria in 2023 to accomplish two principal motives; to resolve Nigeria’s conundrum and to resolve the Igbo question in Nigeria. I am fully acquainted with both issues having been very active on both issues over many years.

 

“Nigeria, a blessed country by God with exceptional human and material endowments, a country with so much promise has remained only a ‘potentially great country,’ which today is seen as the poverty capital of the World with 71 percent poverty level and 53 percent unemployment among the population, with one of the worst insecurity situations in the world, completely divided on all seams – a chronically underdeveloped third world country.

 

“Nigeria’s conundrum has arisen essentially from two critical factors. One, primarily by the extreme deviation of Nigeria from the fundamental structure on which our founding fathers established the country. Two, a painful and distressing deficit of the stock of enlightened, visionary, competent and courageous leadership with integrity.

 

“The Igbo question has arisen primarily from the difficulty of many of our compatriots to accept the unique attributes of the Igbo and his unquenchable appetite for progress anchored on justice, equity and fairness.

 

His desire for economic empowerment and expression is wrongly interpreted as excessive acquisitiveness and love of money.

 

“His desire to develop his environment and make home everywhere he finds himself is misinterpreted as a desire to dominate others. His disdain for injustice, oppression, inequity, mistreatment and marginalisation is often mischaracterised as rebellion. “He lives in a nation he deeply loves and for which he makes the maximum sacrifice for its wellbeing, yet that nation treats him with suspicion and a mixture of derision and fear. In return, sometimes he feels unwanted and even develops a complex: ‘they will never allow us.'”

 

Ohuabunwa went on to say that creating distinctions between Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) and Sunday Igboho, leader of Yoruba separatist movement, or the killings and kidnapping in other parts of the country will not resolve the nation’s security challenges until they are approached holistically. An efficient health sector is another of his campaign promises. He promised to introduce quality universal healthcare through compulsory health insurance and integration of traditional and alternative medicare.

 

This he hopes to achieve with maintenance of environmental hygiene and universal availability of potable water and electricity in all towns and villages. It was not surprising that Ohuabunwa has promised to pay attention to the health sector. As a pharmacist, who rose to become president of PSN, he understands the importance of health to wealth creation and economic growth of any nation.

 

This was why he stated that to achieve citizen economic empowerment, there is the need to ensure minimum quality of life for every Nigerian both at rural and urban centres. Ohuabunwa as a pragmatic politician offered to deploy his wealth of experience, as president of NECA, to intervene in the perennial industrial action by members of the Academic Staff of Union Universities (ASUU).

 

This is because of his belief that “the continued strike action by the universities posed a great danger to the society as the students who have been out of academic activities may be lured into crime and other dangerous vices.”

 

He added: “I have the skills required to bring the strike action to an end and I am ready to wade into the industrial feud between the federal government and ASUU. The nation is still battling to overcome the menace of cybercrimes, rising cases of prostitution, drug abuse and their concomitant effects on the security situation in the country.

 

The nation cannot afford to add fuel to a smouldering fire by feigning indifference to the continued strike action by the university lecturers.” He maintained that this was possible and achievable because he possesses the necessary experience and poise to salvage the country in these trying times.

 

Notwithstanding this laudable campaign promises, Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa still has a big hurdle ahead of him. Obviously he does not believe in money politics, but in Nigeria to win a delegates election is beyond rhetoric.

 

He is proverbial “yoked” with other aspirants with state funds to spend and some others who had held government offices, and who are ready to deploy their wealth to sway the delegates over their side. Ohuabunwa is coming from private sector background where efficiency and capacity are watchwords. If capability is to be considered, then Ohuabunwa has former Anambra State governor, Peter Obi, to contend with. Like Obi, he is not flamboyant.

 

And like Obi, his campaign is based on issues and promises that would be religiously implemented, not rhetoric. All these will be decided in the coming weeks when PDP delegates gather to elect the party’s candidate for next year’s presidential election.

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