Atiku’s desperation to govern need for quality leadership – Ibe

In this interview with ABDULRAHMAN ZAKARIYAU, Mazi Paul Ibe, Media Adviser to former President Atiku Abubakar, and one of the aspirants in the 2019 presidential election, claims that the All Progressives Congress (APC) has failed in the change it promised Nigerians.
He also says his boss represents the hope Nigerians have yearned for
Having served as the Vice President for 8 years, why is former Vice President still interested in becoming the President? Are we satisfied with what we are getting? As a people, as individual are we satisfied ? I don’t think we are satisfy.
So many people have spoken in that light.
We were promised change, but we ended up been in change.
The economy is in shambles, the social political fabric is tearing.
We have never been this divided since the advent of the civil war, the country have been pluralized along fault lines.
It’s not as if those fault lines have never been there, what has happened is that they have been escalated along all manners of lines, threatening the stability and unity of the country and in that atmosphere you can’t have development.
So the question should be, what Atiku Abubakar set to do? Before we go into that, a lot of Nigerians think Atiku Abubakar is desperate considering the number of times he has changed from one political party to the other, what is your reaction to this? I think the desperation is the need for quality leadership, and as a people Nigerians are desperate for leadership that will get Nigeria working again.
It is a certain issue that we are a very endowed country, but the question is what have we made of the endowment? So we need somebody, we need a leader that can come and provide the leadership that has the experience, that has the skills, that has the capacity, a man who is wired for the situation.
There situation that throws up for every challenge, the situation that we have, so much division in the land, some much hopelessness, so we need somebody that can bring people together, that is the biggest challenge that we have.
If you can’t bring people together and then calm frayed nerves and then set the agenda for economic development, for social emancipation, you can’t achieve much.
So the nation at this point in time needs a unifier, that is one of the biggest assets Atiku brings to the Nigeria project.
What is the plan of Atiku with regards to bringing these factors to bear? Well Atiku himself has spoken about what he intends to do.
It is also a settled issues that the country as it is presently constituted needs to be rejigged.
You can’t keep doing the same over and over again, getting the same result.
Even in a journey of a 100 kilometers, when you realise you are lost at the 50 kilometers mark, the right thing to do is to go back and retrace your step, otherwise the rest of the journey is in futility.
So he has spoken about how he intends to retool the country to make it work for everybody, in the social, political and economic sectors.
Let make no mistake about it, people because of politics forget certain issues.
It is settled that Atiku is a business person, business oriented.
He started off as a business person before he gets into politics, the leadership skills that he possesses were all as a bureaucrat working in Nigeria Customs Service.
So whatever that manifests today, he has been prepared for it.
His track record as a custom officer is there, every department where he had worked, he had the highest revenue, including when they wanted to fire him on an account that served the nation, it was the then minister of finance that said no, Atiku is an asset to the Nigeria Custom Service, not a liability.
So Atiku was prepared from the beginning and then he got into business where he saw the next of the Nigeria economy.
It is by the grace of the people that God has brought him to interact with and he invested in that direction.
He made money because he saw an opportunity to invest in it before joining politics, so he has made lots of money from his businesses.
How is Atiku going to ensure that all these translate into meaningful governance if he eventually gets the peoples mandate? You can’t give what you don’t have, Atiku has done it in businesses, he has set up businesses and profitable ones.
So he will replicate what he has done in his businesses, essentially, he knows how to hire, he has a nose for talent and he doesn’t care where they come from.
What he looks out for is do they have the capacity? Do they have the skills? Can they deliver on the mandate that he has set out for them? And he will give them all that is needed to deliver on their job and a lot of these people are young people.
What problem now is about jobs, millions of them have been lost.
Everyday more and more jobless people are been sent into the unemployment market and we need somebody to reverse it.
If you are not wired with a business orientation, mindset, if you don’t have, appreciate that businesses are meant to deliver profit to investors and stakeholders and to created jobs, you can’t be talking about the difficult job of running Nigeria.
Because Nigeria is at the crossroads as we speak now.
So Atiku is going to create more jobs, as am talking to you right now a policy document is been laid out of what Atiku would do at every point in time.
From what we have gathered, some stalwarts seems to be against the emergence of Atiku Abubakar as the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), what do you think are chances of the former Vice President? Since Atiku came back to the party, he has re – energized the PDP support base.
His return to the party has also encouraged a lot of people who were hitherto reluctant and have returned yo the party because of what he did last year.
He knew that the APC was just contraption, a special purpose vehicle for winning an election, they were not prepared for governance.
The not too young to run global phenomenon will militate against Atiku, that is the age limit of those who should be elected as leaders in 2019, do you think Atiku stands any chance before these categories of people? I’m sure a lot of young people are also looking for a leader who will be young at heart, a leader who share in their aspirations, not necessary about age, age is just a number.
The question is, is the leader fit? Is he capable? Does he understand Nigeria? Does he care about my wellbeing? Those are the things a lot of young people are beginning to ask and I think Atiku Abubakar more than any other leader represents these things clearly.
Like I told you earlier, he has young people working for him, even on this journey there is a team of young people who work out tirelessly on their own to put up documents.
Atiku is also committed to 40% of appointing positions in the executives to young people.
And then not only just giving them that opportunity, he has made them part of the people who will put up a framework.
So you can imagine what that means.
These are people who will help in shaping policies and they will also help on the implementation of those policies, so Atiku will mentor them and provide an environment where another set leaders will emerge.
That is also a challenge that we have had over time, that we have never mentored people that will take over leadership roles, Atiku is set to do that.
In about six month to the 2019 general elections, what is your message to the Nigerians, especially the youths? We can’t give up.
The young people and all of us as Nigerians this is the place we call home, so we can’t give up as Nigerians.
And what Atiku Abubakar is set to do is to bring us together, set us to work and get Nigeria working again.
This he can do, with you and I and with leadership that believes in the unity and stability of this country.
So there is hope and Atiku represents that hope

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