There is a lot of Hope for Better Life – Baba-Ahmed

Datti Baba-Ahmed, the Labour Party’s (LP) vice presidential candidate for the 2023 elections, believes that his party’s message is already bringing Nigerians together and offering hope to many.

As a guest on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Tuesday, Baba-Ahmed claimed that tensions in the nation are starting to decrease due to LP’s outreach efforts and the interactions between its presidential candidate and the general people.

“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 coming.

“There is a lot of hope for a 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.

Baba-Ahmed defended both his and Obi’s qualifications to win the election and lead the nation effectively.

“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, so they want to rule Nigeria.”

The Labour Party vice presidential candidate also discussed the situation of Nigeria’s democracy today, more than 20 years 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.

He argued that three philosophical requirements must be met for Nigeria to be a true democracy instead of concentrating only on how the various branches of government work.

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 governments, once elected or imposed themselves, hold power and exercise the authority.

“So, condition two is not there, and condition three is questionable.”

Addressing the issue of security, Baba-Ahmed said the Peter-Obi’s government, when brought to power in 2023, will “account for every square-meter of Nigeria”, adding that in doing this, the administration will recruit more security agents with an emphasis on law enforcement other than defence.

He stated that more police were needed and added that the expansion strategy for security organisations would go beyond just hiring more people to include proper training, welfare, intelligence, and networking.

The difference, in his view, is the people the Labour Party has put forward and the philosophy that has driven them into politics, which in his case is to help fix Nigeria, having discovered what the problem truly is, even though other candidates in the past may have made some of the aforementioned promises.