Peter Obi was the former governor of Anambra State and Presidential aspirant under PDP. He spoke with some journalists about what the electorate should look out for in their choice of next President. MYKE UZENDU was there for The AUTHORITY.
Q. There are speculations that you are being sponsored in the race by Atiku Abubakar.
ANS: You have to check my trajectory as a person, look at all the people that are contesting and view my background, you will probably see that I am the only person who has a very unique background.
I am a business man, I have chaired coorporations in this country including SEC and so many quoted companies and I have been a governor. It is for you to go and check all those places and see what I have been able to do and ask yourself who is the right person to take leadership of this country at this difficult time.
Our country is now going through a difficult time. I am not desperate to be a president, I am desperate to see a better Nigeria.
Q. If elected the next President what will you desperately do to reposition the economy.
ANS. We are now on the top of the list of the most fragile states. We now on the top of the list of the most terrorised state sitting behind Yemen and Afghanistan. We are the capital of poverty in the world. We now have more people living under poverty than most big nations combined. We now have several millions of out of school children.
Unemployment is 33% officially but when you add under employment, it is about 55%. 60% of these are the young ones who constitute the asset and the engine room of their productive age.
People now spend 100% of their salary to feed. It is a crises situation. What will somebody like me do.
We need to move the country from consumption to production. There is nothing to share again,we now need wealth creators not wealth shearers. We have been sharing wealth for a long time, we need to start creating wealth.
Am coming from that background, basically as a trader who has created wealth in private space and in government space. We now need to shut down out cost of governance and everything.
So go and look at the trajectory of where people were coming from and check all the places I have been giving responsibility including being a governor. You saw what I did in Anambra state, you saw what I saved.
Q. How will you tackle insecurity.
We have what we call natural security and artificial security. The natural security deals with job creation, you need to put food on people’s tàble to ensure that they are not doing the wrong thing. If they don’t know where the next meal will come from, the tendency is that they will become a tool for anything. So we need to employ people. I know what to do in puting money into micro, small and medium scale enterprises. I have experimented it in a small way otherwise how could a small state like Anambra end up not owing salary, pension, gratuity, no contractor who has executed his job, raised certificate or supplied us goods were being owed. I left 77 billion which is over $500 million at that time in the bank.
Q. Do you believe PDP can produce the next President.
We are in a crises situation, what the party can do is to allow the best candidate to emerge. We are now using over 90% of our budget to service debt. First four months of last year, we earned N1,875tr, we used N1,802 to service debt, that is 98%of our revenue was thrown into servicing debt.
Last year we said that on the budget of N13tr, we were supposed to borrow N4tr but what we generated was far below, so we borrowed N6.5 to N7tr. This year we said that we are going to generate N20tr to borrow only N7tr but I can assure you that we will borrow more than that so we have crises on our hands.
So in this situation, you need to bring in a competent person, a good manager of resource. So if some one comes and tells you that he can do this and that, ask him to show you where he has done that before. If someone comes today and says am going to save, ask him where did you save. If you want to know further, go and read Ngozi Okonjo’s book “Fighting Corruption is Dangerous” and see all the governor’s who supported and who did not support savings, Peter Obi was the only one who supported savings.
Q. You said sometimes ago that you will not go into the race unless the Presidential ticket is zoned to the South East. What has changed.
ANS I said it last year. I said that i will look at the zoning trajectory and by the time I declared, I said that it is no longer the issue if zoning, I am contesting beause I am qualified for the position.
Q. Will you support the party if it is zoned against you.
ANS. It is the party, they have the final say, whatever they say everybody accepts. I will respect whatever decision they take.
