Austyn Ogannah
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2023 polls: Nigeria’s President must be a Southerner with good constitution, credentials in political economy — Ogannah, THEWILL Publisher

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“Nigeria must elect someone, a hybrid personality that is a Southerner, a businessman or woman, who knows how to create jobs, create wealth, someone who is not your typical politician and is acceptable to all the key interests in the country so we can unite as people and move forward’’

Ahead of the 2023 polls, it has been canvassed that President Muhammadu Buhari’s successor must be a Southerner with good knowledge and understanding of the needs of the Nigerian people and a pedigree in business and not a regular politician.

According to Mr Austyn Ogannah, the Publisher of THEWILL newspaper and TheWill Downtown Lifestyle Magazine, the next president must either be an Igbo or Yoruba, who is not a regular politician but an aggressive and successful businessman.

Featuring as guest on “The Discourse,” a Classic FM 97.3 radio programme, Ogannah, who spoke on the topic, “Finding Nigeria’s Next President,” said the perfect driver to take the country through total reconstruction in 2023 must be authoritative enough to reinvent the ship that will sail the people into the right direction.

“He must be a Nigerian who understands that the country is presently marred by insecurity, divisions, and lacking citizens’ commitment to the project called Nigeria.

“The next President must be a Southern Nigerian, who is healthy and must not be above 70 years old at the time he finishes his tenure in office.

“Nigeria must elect someone, a hybrid personality that is a Southerner, a businessman or woman, who knows how to create jobs, create wealth, someone who is not your typical politician and is acceptable to all the key interests in the country so we can unite as people and move forward,’’ Persecondnews quotes  Ogannah as saying.

“This person must have a blend of Igbo and Yoruba in them so that the agitations from the South East and South West can be calmed. It has to be someone from the private sector with administrative experience.”

For Ogannah, Nigerians have suffered too much to allow an “uncreative mind with no track record of business qualities’’ to emerge as President in 2023.

Still on the qualification of the next Nigerian leader, the publisher said:“The next Nigeria President must be a detribalized successful industrialist or entrepreneur. He must be a President who will unify the nation-state and satisfy the needs of the country.’’

Recalling how Nigerians missed the opportunity to form a viable pressure group with the EndSARS solidarity, Ogannah, said EndSARS was a tool that would have been used to negotiate a better Nigeria but unfortunately, it lost its value.

EndSARS, he said, was the only umbrella that had successfully united Nigerians.

“I expected it to evolve into a pressure group to ensure the major political parties present viable candidates who understand what Nigeria needs, but the unique opportunity was lost.’’

Ogannah, therefore, called for solidarity among the elite to fill the vacuum EndSARS left in order to present credible candidates in the 2023 presidential election, saying “this they must do because the present challenges in the country affect everybody –rich, poor, and elite.’’

“The rich have become poor and the poor poorer,” he lamented, stressing that as a result, everyone must show interest in who emerges as the next President in 2023, especially with the rate of rising agitations and insecurity in the country.

On the poor reading culture among Nigerians, he identified a lack of political awareness among Nigerians because of their poor reading culture.

Advocating the way forward, Ogannah called on publishers to ensure that a minimum of 5,000 copies of their production are sent as complimentary copies to primary, secondary and tertiary institutions in the country as their contributions to addressing the poor reading culture.

On the internal wrangling in the two major political parties in the country (PDP and APC), Ogannah said:“What is happening is not new …the squabbles are recurring events of every oncoming elections. The wranglings are expressions of realigning interests.

“The fights are all about the struggling for positions as the two major political parties walk into the major event of the National Convention.’’

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