Former senate president and one of the presidential aspirants for the 2023 general elections, Ken Nnamani, today in an interview with Arise TV spoke on sundry issues in the country and his candidacy as a presidential aspirant.
He began by lamenting the fact that Nigeria has a history of unprepared leaders which has not gone well and so the trend of groups buying presidential forms for individuals to run for presidency and other political positions is not a good omen for the future leadership of a country as complicated as Nigeria is, especially with the current travails it faces on several fronts. What Nigeria needs for him is a prime time leader who is prepared to lead the nation.
“When I came into the national assembly it was in crisis and you know that the senate is a mini Nigeria consisting of Nigerians from all sections of the country. We took measures to ensure that the senate was efficient then; we put round pegs in round holes by placing senators in committees of their expertise. For someone who has handled the senate at such a critical time, it shows capability in bringing Nigeria out of the problems facing it today”. Nnamani said when fielding questions on his ability to do well as a president.
On the security challenges Nigeria is facing, he is of the opinion that “if we can bring in foreign people to handle our sporting teams, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to do likewise in the security challenges we face. We can bring in people from foreign countries who have handled similar situations to train our security agents”.
When asked why he switched political parties Nnamani pointed out to some internal issues in the PDP which he made public on national dailies and his concerted effort to remedy the dysfunction of the party then which didn’t yield result. For him, now that he is in APC, he has reached a bus stop and wouldn’t be changing party again even if things don’t go his way.
The classical issue of 3rd term agenda of the then president Olusegun Obasanjo was brought to the fore again where Reuben Abati sought to know the role he actually played in the whole process as there are suggestions that he didn’t do much but is highly celebrated for the feat.
He responded by reminding the audience of the critical position he held at the time as the senate president and presiding officer of the senate, “a presiding officer can change the tone of a debate and I was a presiding officer, I know the role I played in scuttling the 3rd term agenda. It required political courage to pronounce the bill dead and that is what I did”.
