New Telegraph

Moghalu: Nigeria need visionary, competent, inclusive national leadership

 

Former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, (CBN), Dr. Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu has lamented the daily diet of killing, terrorism and collapsing national economy, positing that Nigeria’s future is dependent on the emergence of visionary, competent and inclusive national leadership .

 

Moghalu, who has indicated interest in contesting for presidency in 2023 deplored what he described as the drowning the future of Nigeria “in reckless foreign borrowing,” adding that if elected President he will run a government with a dream team of highly competent Nigerians from all parts of our country.

 

Relying on the Enough is Enough platform, even before choosing a political party on which to run, he has put up what he codenamed The SWAG Agenda for a 21st century Nigeria, adding that along with strengthened, independent institutions, “we will deliver results on a Four- Point Agenda in four years (4 by 4), codenamed SWAG – Security for all Nigerians and Nigeria’s territory; War against poverty: skills, jobs for our youth, and an innovation economy, accelerated education and healthcare reform; Good governance: inclusive, transparent, effective and accountable” In a statement issued in Lagos, titled: “What is the value of a Nigerian life?” he stated “We live daily today in the shadow of terrorists.

 

Our economy is collapsing. Many families cannot afford the price of food. Millions of young men and women have no jobs and have no hope. “Our university students know more about ASUU strikes and long school closures than any skills they need to be competitive in the world of the 21st century. Only the rich and powerful can access quality healthcare in our country or abroad as medical tourists, because our health system, like most other systems, is broken.”

 

Recounting his personal experience regarding consequences of strike, he said he lost his father, Isaac Moghalu, in December 1998 because he had a stroke but the doctors were on strike, and therefore we could not get him adequate healthcare on time. Soon after the family found a private clinic and moved him there, he went into a coma and passed on shortly afterwards.” I was heartbroken.

“Today, 23 years later, not much has changed. Like many, I have suffered personally the effects of bad governance in our country. With life in it increasingly nasty, brutish and short, the very idea of Nigeria is now almost meaningless to many Nigerians.

 

Cries for self-determination fill the air in response to fundamental injustice.” The former central banker, academic, former United Nations official regretted that meanwhile, politics in Nigeria does not bring change, and its benefits go to only one group – the political elite.

 

“Their message is loud and clear: we the people – you and I do not matter. The bodies of Nigerians are buried in cold corners of foreign cemeteries  strewn across the Sahara desert, and float in the Mediterranean Sea as a consequence of a non-existent leadership.

 

“Our country can no longer speak confidently in the gathering of nations. Life as ordained by our Creator, that we may experience His Goodness in this land of the living, has eluded us as a people.

 

Only the emergence of visionary, competent and inclusive national leadership, on the one hand, and a fundamental restructuring of Nigeria based on a new people’s constitution, on the other, can arrest that Enough is Enough.

 

“That movement, soon to be present in our numbers in every voting ward in Nigeria will announce within the next few months the political party we will join en masse and seek its platform for the presidential, legislative and gubernatorial roles in governance. We can do this. We can change Nigeria.

 

“Together, let us walk this road to a Nigeria that, within 30 years of successive administrations, will have achieved the kind of economic and technological advancement attained by countries such as Israel, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, and the United Arab Emirates within similar timeframes. It is possible.

 

We only need to participate actively in the democratic process and vote right when the time comes. We the Nigerian people matter. We the Nigerian people deserve better. Let’s do this. Because we can and we must.”

 

He said: “I seek the support of all compatriots- of everyone who is tired of our present national situation. We also need the energy and support of the youth, the middle class, entrepreneurs, and our compatriots in the diaspora.

 

These important segments of our population have in the past been reluctant to engage actively in our electoral process, ostensibly because of the flaws in that process.

 

“The National Assembly must now pass into law, with no further delay, necessary electoral reforms that will make democracy yield real dividends for Nigerians. Our votes must count and be counted transparently.

 

The amendments should include a provision for Diaspora Nigerians to be able to register and vote in all elections in Nigeria from abroad. I am only one face of a movement. A movement of silent and suffering Nigerians fed up with the insecurity, poverty, and a seemingly hopeless future for our country.”

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