BY CLIFFORD NDUJIHE

For Nigeria to climb out of the socio-economic, political and development abyss, Nigerians must elect credible leaders at the 2011 polls, Presidential Candidate of the National Transformation Party, NTP, Hon John Dara and National Chairman of the party, Hon. Emmanuel Mok, have said.

Linking the country’s development challenges to bad leadership, Mok, urged the electorate “to take their destiny in their hands, by voting for trusted, dogged, transparent and credible leaders, who would passionately transform and bail them out of the unfortunate situation, which stemmed from bad governance from bad leaders.”

The party leader, who said that the NTP would not spare efforts to present the electorate with competent , patriotic and visionary candidates across the country, said to effectively harness and achieve optimum benefit from the coming elections, “we must educate the masses of our people that to meet the challenges of the moment, we need high quality leaders to be voted in.”
Speaking in like manner, Dara, who was on January 12 nominated as the presidential flagbearer of the NTP at its national convention in Abuja, said wrong choices of the past was the bane of the country’s democracy.

His words: “The bane of our young democracy is our inability to choose the right leaders to fast track our development efforts. We must not repeat the mistakes of the past. Some parties are trying to foist on us certified corrupt leaders, some are trying to foist on us weak, incompetent puppets of corrupt godfathers, some are trying to foist on us pretenders who abused their opportunity to fight corruption to subvert the constitution and selectively hound the enemies of their godfather, while others still are trying to foist on us a rigid, ex-dictator whose credential includes the removal of a duly elected democratic government. If we want to move forward to greater heights as a nation, we must avoid the mistakes of the past and choose the right leaders. This time around, we must allow the best candidates to win.”

The lost years
Dara in 35-paragraph acceptance speech, said the country had lost so much since independence and needed to re-direct her steps to the right track by voting the right candidates at the polls.

He said: “When Nigeria became independent in 1960, the world saw Nigeria as a natural leader in Africa. With our abundant human and natural resources, we could have out-performed any other newly independent nation in the world. We could have done better than India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia and many other emerging nations.

Regrettably, our leaders mismanaged our opportunities, created avoidable crises, and squandered our riches in an orgy of corruption and debauchery. Our leaders lacked the vision and the discipline to unite and move our people to build a great and prosperous nation.

“We have lost many years, we have lost much ground. Nigeria should have become the principal homeland of all the black people of the world. Nigeria should become an inspiring and pacesetting leader of all African nation, Nigeria should have taught the world how muslims and christians can coexist and live in harmony, Nigeria could have created in the North, cities like Dubai, we could have created cities like Florida or Amsterdam in the Niger-Delta, we could have created our own Shanghai in the South East, but all we have are shanty towns and dysfunctional giant slums.

Our leaders are preoccupied with small matters of tribal rivalries, religious bigotry, self-enrichment and aggrandizement, and the obsessive, purposeless pursuit of personal ambition at the expense of national interests.

 Our elitist is pre-occupied with the pursuit of private wealth for hedonistic gratification without any feeling, or thought or the will to sacrifice for Nigeria. “While the masses of Nigeria appear satisfied to continue to wallow in the pig-sty of poverty and diseases. Contented with crumbs from the overladen banquet tables of the privileged few, we condone with fatalistic submission, the excesses and perversions of our leaders.

It is now time for us to ask God to forgive us for mismanaging the resources and opportunities that He has generously given to Nigeria. It is time to repent, and re-discover our responsibilities to Nigeria. It is now time to rebuild and reposition Nigeria for greatness.”

According to Dara, the April 2011 elections present Nigeria “with a unique opportunity to tell the world that we are ready to recover our destiny, that we can lead Africa to regularly conduct peaceful and fully acceptable elections, that we can lead Africa to practice decent democracy and good governance. We as citizens must be determined to register, vote, avoid election malpractice, and protect out votes.”

The leaders we need

To be on the right track, Dara, who hails from Kwara State and described himself as a transformation leader, said: “We do not need to re_circle past leaders who have failed us, we do not need to invest our hopes on people who are part of our past failing. We need new leaders who can lead Nigeria to the comity of nations. We have many men and women of high integrity with relevant skills and political acumen who can be drafted into the political arena and elected into public offices. The needs of Nigeria are too complex to be left in the hands of challenged and disabled political leaders.
“Nigeria needs transformation leaders who can communicate, who can inspire, who can mobilise, who can unite the people of Nigeria so we can work vigorously to build an organized, functioning and efficient nation. We need a charismatic networker who can attract the best of Nigerian talents at home and abroad to build great teams for Nigeria to excel. We need leaders who can persuade the world to trust and respect Nigeria. We need leaders with exemplary character and high integrity who will promote openness and accountability in government and be role models for others to embrace honesty and discipline.”

His programme
If elected, Dara said he would he would ensure among others: a new social order to create a productive, organized and open society using Federalism and social mobilization; development of human resources through education, health and welfare; development of infrastructure using a holistic and integrated approach, building electricity, transport systems, fuel refinery and distribution systems, gas production and gas distribution through pipelines, telecommunication backbone and extensive broadband connections, entertainment, sports and tourism facilities, water supply, etc.
He also promised economic development through commercial, mechanized and plantation farming, farm settlements for subsistence farmers, formalized mining industry, value-yielding and value-added Oil and Gas sector, petrochemicals and other manufacturing industries, modern retail and distributive system; improved ports and international trade, special attention to, ICT, knowledge, building and defence industries.