Datti Baba-Ahmed, the Vice-Presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 elections, believes that his party’s message is giving many people hope and is already uniting Nigerians.
Baba-Ahmed who on Tuesday featured on Channels Television’, said LP’s communications and interactions with its presidential candidate and the general public are easing tensions across the country.
“You can see that certain groups feel that there is effort feel including from other groups, to make theirs come to power, you can see that tension is actually coming.
“There is a lot of hope for better life, for better security… and the single most important factor uniting Nigeria is the candidacy of Peter Obi,” the LP’s Vice Presidential Candidate asserted.
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Baba-Ahmed also defended his pedigree and that of Obi to win the election and govern the country well.
“Labour Party candidates, assume I am not the one speaking, are driven by their records. They are stepping on what they have succeeded in to attempt to lead Nigeria,” he said.
“Other candidates, I don’t have to mention (their names) are swimming in the ocean of wealth and power and so they want to rule Nigeria.”
The Labour Party’s vice presidential candidate also addressed the state of Nigeria’s democracy more than two decades after the country’s return to civil rule.
“It is very sad that what you keep hearing (about) endlessly are the three arms of government in a democratic government,” he said.
Instead of focusing on how the various branches of government work, he explained that for Nigeria to be a true democracy, three philosophical conditions must be met.
Elaborating, he said, “One, democracy must not be about individuals or small groups or any group for that matter. It must be about a political entity for it to qualify as democratic. It (should be) about national and bigger interests.
“Two, the aspirations and the desires and the will of the people must reflect in their elections…, which means we are yet to meet the second philosophical condition of democracy.
“The third one is that, as provided in the Constitution, the people must hold power, on whose behalf the elected government exercises authority. What you have now is that government once elected or they impose themselves, they hold the power and exercise the authority.
“So, condition two is not there and condition three is questionable.”
Concerning security, Baba-Ahmed stated that if Peter Obi’s government is elected in 2023, it will “account for every square meter of Nigeria,” adding that the administration will recruit more security agents with an emphasis on law enforcement rather than defense.
He stated that the police force needs to be expanded, and that the expansion plan for security agencies will include adequate training, welfare, intelligence, and networking.
While other candidates in the past may have promised some of the same things, according to him, the difference is the individuals put forward by the Labour Party and the philosophy that has driven them into politics – which in his case is to help fix Nigeria after discovering what the true problem is.
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