Nigeria Needs President with Strong Will, Says Kwankwaso

Kano State Governor and presidential aspirant on the platform of All Progressives Congress (APC) for 2015 general election, Mr. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, has said Nigeria is desperately in need of a strong, politically-willed leader to salvage it from current insecurity and economic problem.
Kwankwaso made the assertion during a fundraising ceremony in aide of his presidential ambition at Sheraton Hotel in Abuja on Saturday night.

The governor, who will face four other APC aspirants including former Head of State, General Muhammadu Buhari, (rtd); former Vice-President, Atiku Abubakar; Imo State Governor, Chief Rochas Okorocha and the Publisher of Leadership Newspapers, Mr. Sam Nda-Isaiah, in the party primaries on Wednesday, said he is the right person to handle the security issues of the country.

The aspirant said Nigeria needed a strong-willed president to surmount the insecurity challenges, adding that he is the right man for the job.

“What we are lacking in my opinion is a commander-in-chief who has the capacity and political will to stop what is happening today in this country. I want to assure you that as somebody who has been very conversant with the security of this country, I have no doubt in my mind that Kwankwaso will be the right person to handle the security issues of this country,” he said.

According to Kwankwaso who had served as the Minister of Defence in 2010, one of the low-points of President Goodluck Jonathan is his inability to rid the country of insecurity and corruption.

He lamented the debilitating impact of the criminal activities of Boko Haram insurgents which he said had forced many Nigerians to take refuge in neighbouring countries.

“Of course, in any country that has similar security issues especially coupled with corruption, nothing would work and that is why today, so many things have gone wrong in this country and as members of APC and even people outside our party, our prayer is that the right candidate should be elected on December 10 in Lagos.

“All of us here are very much aware of what is happening in this country. Today, as we are sitting, we have thousands of Nigerians in Chad Republic, in Cameroun and in Niger as refugees. We also have about 4 million people that are being internally displaced. These are to some extent, the lucky ones because so many innocent people are being killed in this country. And this is a very sad development for all of us.

“Most people normally forget that North-east is certainly part of us. Those people are our brothers and sisters. Of course not only in the North-east, the crisis is all over the North and even in some parts of the South especially the issue of kidnapping and armed robbery.

“The issue of security anywhere in the world is key. Any government at all levels that cannot protect its people and their properties, that government has no business even staying talk less of looking for reelection.”

He further decried that a country that has been reputed to have the best military in the world can no longer protect its citizens.

“I always feel terribly bad as a member of the extended family of the military in this country that today we cannot protect ourselves. I always remember those days when our military was in Liberia, Sierria Leone, Dafur and other parts of Africa. These were soldiers that did extremely well by any world standard. Those days, we were not even talking of protecting ourselves. We were protecting others on this continent.

“Many years before then, this country had the capacity to support other African countries to even remove them out of apartheid and other serious international issues but today we have seen a situation where countries that were coming to beg for one thing or the other, now we have to go and beg them to help us protect our lives and properties.

“I believe that this mess will certainly stop by the Grace of God in 2015 when we have the right leader.”

Earlier, a former ally of Buhari, Alhaji Buba Galadima had urged the people to donate to generously for the presidential ambition of Kwankwaso to enable him replicate his legacies in Kano state for the country at large.

“Kwankwaso is one that believes education is power and wealth. And he has used education effectively to address the issues of poverty and he has used his foresight in making education the backbone of the development of any nation in the world,” he said.

The weekend fund raiser pulled well over N1.5 billion through donations from friends, family members, political associates, well wishers of the governor.

Source: ThisDay