Electricity, Open Grazing Ruffle Nigeria’s Presidential Candidates At ICAN Conference
As the race to elect Nigeria’s next president heats up, inadequate electricity supply and the controversial open grazing initiative were among the pertinent issues put across to party presidential candidates, featured on a panel discussion at the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) conference on Wednesday.
The panel discussion was one of the highlights of the 52nd Annual Accountants’ Conference, which is themed, ‘Nigeria: Adapting Sustainability for Economic Prosperity.
It provided the presidential candidates with the opportunity to tell Nigerians how well they understood the challenges the country faced, and how they intend to pilot the affairs of governance if elected into office in 2023.
The Independence National Electoral Commission (INEC) has fixed Nigeria’s general election to hold between 25 February and 11 March 2023. The President and Vice President will be elected on 25 February next year, and the electoral body has urged the political parties to focus attention on issue-based campaigns.
Three parties, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), the opposition, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP) are on the frontline of the elections which the new awareness in the country, has thrown up some surprises and a movement which aims at toppling the old and the elderlies from plum political positions.
Present at the ICAN Presidential Candidate Session were the vice presidents of the New Nigeria’s People’s Party (NNPP), Issac Idahosa and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Ifeanyi Okowa.
Others were Presidential Candidates of Accord Party (AP), Christoper Imumolen; Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, African Action Congress (AAC), Omoyele Sowore; and All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), Peter Umeadi.
In answer to a question on their stands on the issue of open grazing, the LP presidential candidate said it is to look at what is it today and be able to ask whether the country is getting the maximum production and effect of the opening grazing as it is today.
If not, we go into what is modern and discuss the issue with all the people involved and say this is what we can do, Obi argued.
“It is an issue that needs holistic attention because today we have several states that have passed the law banning open grazing, and it is an issue that is very controversial. So, it is something we need to sit down and we all are involved to be able to dialogue and be able to come to a solution that is a win-win, especially one that can help in increasing production in that sector. That is what I am going to do,” Obi, who is a former governor of Anambra state, added.
When asked what he can do about providing electricity as it is directly related to economic sustainability, the AAC presidential candidate said Nigeria can never experience an industrial revolution without electricity.
“Electricity to my mind is even more important than insecurity at this point because if we get our electricity right we would solve about 70 per cent of the problem of our insecurity. With electricity gotten right, a lot of the people who are constitution banditries and terrorists in this country will have a job to do,” Sowore said.
In responding to the question on open grazing, the AAC presidential candidate argued that if elected he would completely go for ranching because it is safe, secure and a source of generating power.
“There is a difference between grazing and trying to grab lands, asserting the federal government is interested in RUGA (rural grazing area),” Sowore added.
On his part, the PDP vice presidential candidate, while responding to the controversial open grazing initiative said emphatically that the federal government has not landed on its own.
“Land by institution belongs to the state government and the people of the state. But first is for us to find collaboration and realisation that all component parts matter. Both the federal, state and local governments need to sit together to attend to the solution,” Okowa, who is the incumbent governor of Delta State, said.
The PDP VP candidate added, “I agree with him [Sowore] that ranching is the pathway. But ranching is also very expensive and not something you can get to immediately. The fact is that ranching takes a lot of capital to do that. So, what we [PDP] have to do is to find a way to work with the private sector and state government to have access to funding cheap and agricultural rates not raise beyond 10 per cent so that with the funding we can actually have what it refers to as grazing places as Awolowo did.”
The Accord Party’s presidential candidate while answering both questions said he has always emphasised that the government has no business engaging in business.
“If you check you will find out that every sector where the government is involved has a huge problem – power sector, tertiary education. In electricity, one of the things we will be doing is to look at the policy framework,” Imumolen said.
The AP presidential candidate blamed the monopoly in the power sector as the bane for the dilapidation of electricity in the country. He said, “If we must grow as a nation, the power sector must be liberalised.
Imomulen also blamed the issue of open grazing on the security challenge in the country, calling for the country to digitize its system holistically.
Other issues raised at the ICAN 2022 conference include rebuilding Nigeria’s refineries, creating state police, restructuring, and developing education and healthcare institutions among other burning challenges the country faced.`
Comments are closed.