ABUJA —IMO State Governor, Ikedi Ohakim, and former Minister of Justice, Prince Bola Ajibola,  yesterday, asked President Jonathan Goodluck for devoting attention to possible re-election in 2011 instead of solving some of the basic problems facing the country.

The two men spoke at the Sardauna Excellence and Leadership Awards in Abuja. Ohakim received the award of the best governor from the South East while Prince Ajibola got the lifetime achiever award.

Governor Ohakim who spoke at the fourth Sarduana National Excellence and Leadership Award in Abuja where he was crowned the Best performing Governor from the Southeast zone observed that political leaders should be more concerned with the nation’s ailing economy, power outages and the spate of kidnapping in the country.

Ohakim said: “The calculations towards 2011 elections should not be the issue for now as there are many problems facing the nation. People should concentrate their energy more on revamping the nation’s ailing economy, on how to tackle the spate of kidnapping in the country, the generation of adequate power supply which would create the much needed jobs and drive the economy.”

On his part, Ajibola agreed that President Goodluck had been fully distracted by the contest the Presidency in 2011.

He said: “I know that he is eminently qualified as a Nigerian. But, what we are saying is that he should give us light; and give our children jobs before 2011. The President should address the endemic corruption, that has never been so pervasive.

“He has to fix things to work to show that he would be a worthy candidate to contest. But, my advice is that he should not contest for the 2011 election, because we cannot trust him to  be an unbiased umpire.”

Others that received  awards were Senator Olorunimbe Mamora for the Legislator of the Year; Minister of State for Niger Delta, Mr. Sam Odeh for the Young Achiever of the year and Mr. Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the Central Bank Governor with the Public Administrator of the Year award.