 Good morning and welcome to the run-up. My name is Uche Chuku Anadu. Today we're going to be doing an analysis of the major, three major presidential candidates and to have that conversation with me I am going to be having a political analyst, Boogie Okwimoi. Also we will be having Baba Shola or A.J. talk about grassroots politics and from there we're going to move on to talk about the probable after-effects of the flawed and the looming food scarcity that might come with it and to have that conversation with me I'm going to be having Mary Ufon and that's a rundown of everything packed up today and I am already here with Boogie. Good morning sir. Good morning. Thanks for having me. Okay we're talking about the three major presidential candidates that we have and we're going to be doing a full-on analysis on all of them but first off before the primaries came up we had a long list of people who were vying for you know the presidential seat talking about the Kingsley Moalows and a lot of them the but there has been agitations and people are not happy especially after the primaries happened so my question to you is do you think that the fact presidential candidates are picked by you know a college of delegates and not the entire electorate do you think it makes for a credible selection? Well that's part of the order we have to be in with democracy as accepted as democracy is being a government of the people, the way it is practice comes up with a few challenges and of course with its many advantages and one of the major challenges of democratic processes is the fact that political parties give us candidates you know before we can have candidates to choose from the political parties within themselves through the delegate and the primary system through our candidates so the reality is that we are actually constrained to go with whatever options the political parties give to us and that is why some people still always come for independent candidates is where people who don't want to be who have ambitions and who don't want to be bogged down by the home process of the primaries especially the way primaries are conducted in our country today we all know how those primaries are done we all know how delegates are reported to be enticed to determine who the trooper is going to be so of course it doesn't give us it doesn't give us the best but I mean there's no perfect system so that's a burden we have to bear with going through the democratic process it's unfortunate that that's how it is but I mean that's who keep pushing for the independent candidates to just give that option for people to have a choice outside what's the political political parties present so it's really it's it's not a plus and we hope that at some point we'll be able to have the independent candidates okay there has been a lot of conversations around you know the competence and if these candidates can be trusted and of course their competence uh judging them based on their past experiences and you know how we've been watching them so far and our perceptions of what I say our I'm talking about the Nigerians I'm talking about the electorate uh judging these persons based on their competence and of course the experience they've had in leadership in in governance can you tell us the factors that determine competence given the current political situation in Nigeria competence you tie competence to the problem that is supposed to be solved so you can't have it to be a bit difficult to have a holistic approach towards determining what competence is um if we look at insecurity we might look at the candidates and see that this person is most competent to deal with that we might look at economy and we determine that these other candidates is best position to deal with that we might look at unemployment we might look at so many other factors really and each of these factors requires a particular level of competence to be able to fulfill so we may we may not be based on your question we may not be able to hold this to kind of determine that oh this particular person is competent is the most competent out of all of them we might have to look at these issues individually economy the security um job creation wealth generation foreign policy each of these different areas have and I think all of the candidates that well most of the leading candidates that physically have today have their strengths in these different areas so I think to the left 29 grants at the end of the day to assess the combination of all of these competencies and decide which direction would be the safest safest to go to so it might be a bit difficult for me to say oh this is the most competent person or that is the most competent person because in these different areas we have a different for example um some ragi that pita always seems to have a better understanding of the economy and wealth creation and world generation and moving us from a consuming nation to producing nation on the other hand some argue that when you look at security um probably it seems to have might you know have have more capacity to deal with that considering the vice president sharoni matey has who seems to some say she wants to work with conjectures and and rumors but I think having govern this state like for a new state he should have more understanding of the situation is you should have more understanding of what what the problems in they are and possibly will be in a better position to profile solution so we have to just look at these candidates in different capacities as it as it relates to competence so it will be difficult to really say let me let me make this question easy let me let me break it down for you let's take it away from whoever we know their names and their faces let's take it away from them from the candidates presidential candidates that we already know about talk about uh we don't know them now we're just talking about in Nigeria that we're looking forward to uh and you know there has been a lot of conversations about the educational background they are age where they are coming from in terms of experience so if you were let's say somebody who is Mohammed Chukwemeka uh uh this person does not exist but he's a presidential candidate and we're looking at him coming out how would you judge him uh based on you know the question that I asked you looking at his competence what would you be looking out for oh the first thing I'll be looking for is experience like I tell people you for elective positions there's no there's no there's no manual you know there's no school you go to to be trained to be an elective officer and there's the dynamism of the Nigerian structure what the people in acquire will refer to as a leader who has done well and his competence is different from what probably people in Kano will consider for elite I mean each of these areas are their peculiar challenges and their peculiar expectations so um experience will be very key knowing that this person has function in this capacity and has an idea if you look at uh politics today um just this morning I was watching a video online where um the former governor of states uh Bradley Fashella was talking about the income in government you know and he was you know talking preference solutions and all of that and it seemed like they had the magic word but when they got into the office they realized that the view from outside is different from your view from inside you know so um you might blame the old they didn't perform this by their promises but we must make the excuse for them that it was easy to have this speaking from outside so so so experience is going to be one of the first things that we're going to look at and the second thing we're going to look at is personality what kind of a person is this candidate is this somebody who has a history of empathy is this somebody who feels what the citizens feel is this somebody who um who who who is touched by what his people go through so we look at his personality is this somebody that is a that is that is uh comfortable with grafts with fraud with uh corruption is this somebody who's who's understandable I mean I think for example looking at the asu asu situation yes I think somebody who had who has empathy who feels what it is for parents to have children at home for so long for parents not to know when the children they are raising through school will be going through I mean somebody who has strong empathy would probably have addressed that issue much earlier and you know much better so I think the person's personality let's look at this person's antecedent what were his comments on certain situations what was his position when certain things happen it helps us get an idea of the kind of personality that we're going to be putting into the office I mean the last year's elections the last year's tenure do not show those how much a man's personality can bring to bear on the office another thing I would look at is um the person's integrity I'm careful about the word integrity but more like um what are the person's values what are what are the person's what's the person's history in the different places where the person has been entrusted with public office how did he conduct himself how did he because a lot of us know that one of the biggest problems we face in this country today is corruption I mean if there was no corruption the power sector will be working if there's no corruption ask them the university systems will be working if there was no corruption we'll be talking about crude oil tech so we look at the person's background and we look at the person's history and then we also look at the person's unfortunately some people don't like to hear this I don't want to say age but the person's physical mental and psychological state leading 200 million people having the responsibility of the lives of 200 million people in your hands it's not a joke we have to be sure that your faculties and all the necessary um biological parameters I'm check the job of the president is it's not a simple one it's not an easy one I mean the president I mean should be somebody who's ready to work 24 hours even delegation is coming from the united states and they are on their way to probably another country they have a certain that they're going to be pleased your plates you have the mental capacity to have the physical capacity to jump from meetings to meetings do you have the physical capacity to to move around where you have to move around you know when those limitations are there I tell people I say god created man to fulfill the love diminishing returns in other words a man is born and then he grows in capacity he gets to a second point and he begins to deep so it is a biological process that when a person gets to a certain age it is expected he won't do it is not absolutely um compulsory there must be like that that the faculty start start reducing you know the person's ability to perform certain things that start start dropping so this argument is why some people would request for a younger person but I mean that's not that's not all it's an argument but it's not all I mean with age comes experience with age comes more wisdom so they are different they are different but of course I would look at the person's capacity look at somebody like a passenger who's um I mean over 80 going to 19 but he still seems to be very fit he seems so age that's why I didn't use age I'm more about the person's mental capacity his physical capacity and his um psychological being so like I said I've talked about experience I've talked about um the person's personality I've talked about the person's physical physical well yes and then maybe or that if you notice I intentionally do not talk about education why why is that I'm going to ask you that question I was going to get to that because you mentioned earlier while you were speaking you mentioned how that actually leadership nobody puts you through any particular maybe physical school to teach you the rudiments of leadership and that was going to be another question but you might have to join it with this education part of you know your analysis so if nobody puts you through a particular kind of school to teach you leadership you know when we talk about experience in Nigeria for example it's not related but I'm going to use that as an example when young persons leave school and they are looking for jobs uh employers usually say you need to have five years experience you need to have 10 years experience and young persons usually ask where am I supposed to get this experience from same thing is happening now political space same people are being churned out season uh political season after political season we keep hearing almost the same names all the time and then we're supposed to have a major segment of our population covered by young persons and these people are supposed to people that you know in the future will be judged by their experience in leadership how are they supposed to have this experience do you understand where I'm coming from now yes I can understand perfectly now let me start with the education part yes when we make reference to education especially as it relates to governance and as it relates to public office we usually would talk about the formal educational you know track we think about oh does he have a bsc he go to school does he have this education is not limited to the formal track I mean education is broad education is basically the development of the human mind and we have seen countless numbers of people who have been successful outside of the formal education track we have athletes we have entertainers we have sportsmen who have become successful it's not because of what they studied in school or whether they even went to school that's on one side so when people talk about education and talk about I'm not with two particular in that direction if we say oh a candidate is educated he has a master's in chemical engineering he has a none of that well I'm not saying none but that majorly is not going to help him when he becomes president at most where that will really be beneficial is possibly when he comes to you are wanting you know when it comes to development of infrastructure and all of that and then some of his training can come in but being president you know puts a whole lot of responsibility on you that transcends various sectors so educational competence may not be you know what what will be the primary what has this person made what kind of education life education has this person had there's I mean there's several industrialists there are several people who are going to become successful who are billionaires today who are built conglomerates who are built massive organizational structures who employ thousands of graduates but who never went to school they got a different kind of education so I really am not always too particular about you know the specific formal education that somebody has received now to your question about oh when somebody gets into office you talk about experience where does the person get the experience it is often said in in in politics especially around campaign season when somebody comes out for probably to contest for governor and he's the first timer you know what hearing about him and his way for government you hear some people say things like ah can you just come out and say it's going for government you should go for cancel office or you should go for local government chairman first it sounds condescending but if you look at it on its merits it really is not you know it doesn't mean somebody who comes out for the first time cannot do well in a particular position or it is expected that somebody who's going to be aspiring for a position as high as probably a governorship position or a presidential position should have gained certain experiences from setting other lower positions even up for anything to understand the process of governance to understand the process of public service what happens is that when a meal fight gets into a particular position he takes too much time to adjust to understand how things are done to understand how you know and we really as a country do not have that much time to have somebody learning on the job so it makes some sense that somebody who has decided I have the public service career or he has a political career was beginning to exercise those those those leadership ambitions in some other position where he can gain experience before he moves to to to something bigger and something higher for students who come out of school and then you want to apply for a job and you're telling you know you need to gain experience here you need experience may not necessarily have to be in a corporate setting what have you done in terms of entrepreneurship what have you done in terms of skills what have you done in terms of where you're putting together a series your city can either be following an experience track this are the experiences I have so you're talking about the things you've done you're talking about the places you go the things you then it might come from an academic background so that city is populated with your academic qualifications populated or it might be skills it's a specific skills that I have and look at where I have displayed them so it is not a limitation for you to be asked for some experience if you have an ambition in that direction you must begin to look for sources and ways to gain that experience so that's that's that's it for education like I said earlier on um we need a president who's wise we need a president who's empathetic we need a president who has integrity we need a president who much more than we need a president who has a phd who has a master something like that's what I think uh very enlightening this conversation with you this morning boogie thank you so much for dropping by the run-up this morning it was amazing talking to you and hopefully we'll keep talking uh have more conversations it was uh really amazing having you on the show thank you so much and this is where we uh thank you very much and the conversation about the three major presidential candidates that we have uh the year 2023 is close very close belly four months away and the elections will be all upon us uh this is still the run-up we're going for a quick break when we return we're going to take the conversation down to the grassroots you don't want to miss that stay with us