 Tonight, we speak with the presidential candidate of the Young Progressives party on his presidential bid and the state of the nation. And Interpol gets fleeing Kujae inmate's data, water security heightened while terrorists are tripping southward after a dilute tries out. And this is PlusPolitics and I am Mary Anacor. Ahead of the 2023 general elections, the presidential candidate of the Young Progressives party, YPP Prince Malik Adoy Ibrahim, has pledged to revamp Nigeria's power, saying he will ensure a steady electricity supply if elected into office. Malik Adoy Ibrahim, who emerged as the 2023 presidential candidate of the Young Progressives party, polled 66 votes to bid his rival, Ruby Isaac Chinaya, at the party's presidential primary in Abuja. In his acceptance speech, he also promised to address the country's security challenges, create jobs and revamp the economy if elected into office come 2023. And joining us live from Abuja is Prince Malik Adoy Ibrahim, the presidential candidate of the Young Progressives party. It's good to have you join us, Mr. Ibrahim. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Can you hear me? Great. It's good to have you join us. So let's go straight to it. I mean, all the political parties have had their primaries and now everybody's looking to who's being picked as running maids and, of course, what are the plans and strategies for every political party and its candidate. For you, I'm going to start by asking because when a newbie comes into the scene, they come with new energy, new ideas. And I'm asking first and foremost, why do you want to be president of Nigeria? Well, it's good to be here with you and your viewers. I think my primary reason for coming into this race is because I feel that we've neglected people in a way that is really, unfortunately shameful. We've seen politics of self rather than politics of for the nation and service to the people. And I think that we can do better and I'm offering up solutions just to make sure that people realize that there are other options other than the two twins, you know, the two large parties. Interesting. Now, there are lots of people who say that being the president of Nigeria is one of the toughest jobs, you know, on the planet. And now that the country is riddled with all kinds of things, whether it be in security from north to south, we're also dealing with issues of power like you've clearly stated. You're taking a serious downturn. Literally everything that could go wrong is going wrong. And one would wonder what someone like you would have to offer coming into the scene. And don't forget, we have so many people coming out this time who have thrown their hats into the ring and every single person is saying we want to change Nigeria. But then how do you go about it? Because I always ask everybody, what do you think Nigeria's problem is and how do you start solving it, or where do we start to start solving the problems? I don't think the question needs to be asked beyond the basic understanding of the man in the streets. We need to reset the country, we need to reset Nigeria, and that means going back to basics. A country without power is not a country, living in the Stone Age, when over the last four months we've had about 17 great failures. My basic concept is this, if we cannot get back to basics and reset Nigeria, there's nothing you're going to put on top of that foundation that will work. Everything will fall apart. And if you are looking for, I wouldn't even say change, you have a complete directional pivot. We need people to understand the situation, understand what the basic things the man in the street needs. And I'll tell you, in my adventure through this country over the last 10 years and in my recent decision to come into this race, it's really quite uncomplicated. We have to fix the power situation. And by fixing the power situation, I'm not talking about let's build turbines and everything everybody else has been doing. We've spent trillions of Naira being repetitive about things that have worked the way they want them to work. For example, we actually produce power than we actually put on the grid because the transition in the country can take what it can take now, about 4,000 to 5,000 megawatts. There's no way they can be able to pump anything more on that line, anywhere in the country. So you need to look at an energy mix. You need to look at it slightly differently. I come from the renewable energy background. And that means that you can better power where it's needed without using the grid, using what we call an energy mix. So you use renewables, you use the dams, you store power and you integrate to the people. And you don't have to do it in massive scales. Some places are big, some things are small. And if you can take some of the demand of the grid and fix the small places, the large cities will be able to at least get more power coming to them. And this design is not something new. It's called a smart grid. And I'm definitely one of the people at the United Nations to study looking at how a smart grid works in Africa. And I believe that reputation I have for renewable and that understanding of what we can do with renewables, an energy mix and a smart grid, I just don't see anybody in this race having that opportunity to bring this to Nigeria. And I've demonstrated this last weekend in a project in Adamawa state. In Yola, the disco there takes seven megawatts onto the grid. And we put five megawatts of over 80% of the grid's location into one project in Mayo Belga in Adamawa state. And that's just using renewables. And it's 24 hours power stored and delivered. It's just one example of what we can do if we give it into a different dimension. The two large parties that offer the same things, the three people are going to come into office, the same ministers. I'm not going to see anything different. And that's a problem we're going to solve. The other big elephant in the room for Nigeria is security. Now, for the life of me, I have no idea what we've been spending money on. Our soldiers are still using the same AK-47. They don't have the same aircraft. The enemy is not a country. It's fellow Africans. The intelligence gathering is zero. What happened this week in Kuwait is symptomatic of what is going on in this whole country. No new idea. Nobody has over-sighted our security architecture. And when you're over-sighted, you go in and see where the holes are. You know what's going to happen because these terrorists are telling you, we're going to come and get our guys out. My aunt and my cousin were kidnapped on that train from Juna to Abuja. And still over 100 days not come back from it. They wanted a swap between the people they had in Kuje jail and the kidnapped victims. We don't know really what was happening. They promised they would get their people out. They've got their people out and the people are still kidnapped. Where's our intelligence network? There's so much that can be done. And as I said, we can put, build that onion ring over and over again. We need new ideas. We need to pivot. We need modernity. We need technology. There's no point in the jail in Kuje should have had CCTV. Well, even if it had CCTV, there's no power. And we go back to the same thing. If you don't have power, some things don't work and security is definitely one of them. Well, again, again, this is very interesting because these are conversations I wanted to break down with you, but I'm glad that you've gotten to that part where you're saying we need power to power everything. And that's like the basics. But let's look at the fact that this government had come into power telling us that they were going to deal with insecurity. They were going to reduce the impact of terrorism in the country. They were going to give us great access to opportunities for our young people. And they were going to fight corruption. But let's stay with the insecurity situation. Mr. President travels to Senegal right after the Kuje and of course his convoy, his advance team was hit. A lot of people have criticized Mr. President for that, but this is not the first. And many politicians would come up with very bright ideas. And they give us the talk that we want to hear. But when it comes to the doing part, we never, ever get to see it. So why should any other Nigerian take seriously what you have said? Because people come with these bright ideas. But when it comes to implementation, this is where we find ourselves. So how are we certain that this is not just another nice, interesting way of putting it so that people can vote for you? Well, I think you need to look at my areas of sphere of influence and experience. I really can't say that Mr. President didn't have the best of intentions. He's an honorable Nigerian and he came in, I think his choices are a little bit suspect. Because I think when you're such a large party, you have to compromise. And he compromised with the system. And I think that that's when you have circles and squares. You don't have the right kind of architecture. He means, and I cannot say that I would sit down and blame an individual that is not, I'm not competing against it. I'm looking forward and I'm realizing that we're going to have more of the same if APC or PDP bring another candidate to the forum. They're all of the same elk, they're of the same persuasion as far as I'm concerned. They do not have the ability to proper ideas. And I think out of all the 17 people that are running for the presidency without due humility, I'm the only one that has any military experience. I'm the only one who has performed with a different kind of military mindset, which is asymmetric warfare. I build weapons systems for different countries. I do intelligence work and equipment for different countries. I profit my solutions here and I get the same response. If your department chief does not know what he wants, let's just say you pick one of those two big parties and you bring them in. And he has no military experience. What is he going to do? He's going to lean on somebody to deal with the security situation. And if you don't know what he's giving you as your solution, you're not a problem. But we do have a president who was a general. And I think this is one of the reasons why Mr. President was voted for, the fact that he was a general, the fact that when he was president in the 1980s, he was somewhat of a strong arm president. But then this is what we have. So whether you have an arm to lean on or whether you are experienced in arms dealing or you have some form of security background, does that go to say that you will be good at this job? Let's not also forget that the president is one person. And there are other people who work with Mr. President. So is it just about the political will here? Because we always talk about political will. Does it not go beyond that in dealing with the right? Let us not make this mistake again in 2023. You cannot say that somebody who ran a general in the Second World War is going to come and teach you or give you the experience of 2023. Different age, different time. 1984, civil war, different times. We're still using those, by the way, those 1960 weapons of the same ones we're using in 2023. And hello, it's no surprise we can't pick anything. What's happening is that we're not picking man for the times. We're picking based on certain different elements, whether it's ambition or the fact that it's a party platform. I will tell you that if you put the right man in this job, you will see mock differences. The main reason why you mock differences, if you put somebody that has the energy to do the work, that has the experience to know, to pick, it's not just picking something or cleaning. You go to a job interview for my business. It's my business. I know what I want and I interview the person based on what I know. And he's there for me to delegate power to. And if you don't pick that right person, your chemistry is wrong. You'll be feeding me wrong information. But if I know what I'm looking at, I'm sitting in that war room with him and I'm saying, this is the solution I want. Yes, I want to hear your ideas. But do we have this kind of architecture? Do we have drugs? Do we have the right kind of artillery? How are men fed? What's the welfare situation? What's the intelligence gathering? There's a lot of things here that you miss because you're looking at it from, I'm the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I will tell you that I'm not interested in being the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I want to be the leader of this great nation and to get it back on a stable footing so that we can progress. And if you don't have those first elements to it, power and security, you don't have an agent. No matter what anybody tells you, your education doesn't work, your healthcare doesn't work, your roads don't work, nobody goes anywhere. They stay at home days, there's no fuel. We can go through a myriad of things here, but we have to fix the basics in order for this community to move to the next level. Perfect. Let's talk about, I was looking through your reset movement. I'm interested in that movement, but then something struck me, you talked about inclusivity and the betterment of Nigeria. Let's talk about inclusivity here. We all know that Nigeria is divided along religious and ethnic lines. This is a situation where we're still dealing with looking at issues from those prisons. Now, as president, how would you blur those lines? Because again, to the average person, you're from the central parts of the north and you would say that you're from the middle belt, however you want to categorize that, but then this is how we see things in Nigeria. How do you hope to change that if you are president? Well, I think because I'm from the Confluent States, because I'm from the middle belt, I'm able to bring... Oh, I think that we're having a connection problem with you and we're unable to hear you. So I'll try that again. Nicely till today. Can you hear me now? Yes, I can hear you. Go ahead. I said because I'm coming from the middle belt of this country and because that middle belt does a lot of things like differently, yes, we are cordial political expedients. We are the middle belt. We have always been that, where counted on when folks need to be counted, but just like the southeast or south-south or not so south-south anymore, we haven't had a democratic elected president from the middle belt of this country. And why I say the middle belt is important is because we're not extremes. The middle draws everybody to itself. We are where Christianity and Islam meets, where the north, the south, the east and the west meet. We're in the middle. And we don't see religion as the criteria or excellence. We see cerebral exchange with people. You have to have the right man for the right job. And I tell you what, if we keep dividing the cake based on the crumbs we want to look like to satisfy people, we're going to have a country that's going to fall apart very quickly. Okay, interesting. I was hoping that you'd tell me exactly how you'd hope to do this, but then you say the right man for the job. Obviously you're talking about yourself. But let's- No, no, I'm not. I'm saying even as if I was the man that had that job, in order for me to pick the right people in this country, I can't judge you based on your religion. I must judge you based on the content of your head and your heart. If you are a patriot and if you have the cerebral skills that I need to be able to delegate, you're the man or woman for the job. And that is where that inclusivity must come in. Yes, you get from everywhere and you look to try to find a match for the sort of federality of Nigeria. But we are so far down this rabbit hole. We have so many problems that we need real leadership to get us out of this. And if we keep dividing this country based on ethnic lines or religious lines, I'm sorry we're just not going to make it work properly for us. Let's talk about the politics of it all here. I mean, this is a game of numbers, whether we like it or not. People, yes, want to hear what your plan is and what you bring to the table. But then of course, we also know that you have the APC, the PDP, we have the new movements, like the Labour Party and the NNPP. I always ask this question to every presidential candidate, including those in the big parties. What makes you think you stand the chance against all of these men? Some would consider you a newbie. Some, I've heard people say that, oh, well, you're just well-spoken and you might sway people. But then Nigerians seem to be a lot more critical in this election. Do you think that Nigerians have gotten to a point where they're ready to embrace a newbie and a totally unusually new party? It's not like the YPP is very new, but you know what I mean in terms of our voting patterns. Well, YPP has a very unusual way to look at it. We do have a sitting senator in the Labour Group. And not many of the other parties do have that, whether you agree with that or not. We're not a newbie per se. But let me talk personally. What is a newbie? What, a newbie of governance? That would be wrong. I've worked at the United Nations as an Undersecretary for Renewable Energy for 154 countries, heads of state and ministers. That's not capable to a state governor. And nobody's looking for me. I don't have a bad record. I have a sterling one, actually, for my skill set in bringing people together. That's one element. You've got to know you're dealing with. I can't wait for debates because you will see that the Swiss cheese and everybody will be holes galore. And I'll guarantee you that the big parties won't even turn up to the debates. Because the optics of what you're going to see in 2023 is what the young people in this country want to see. Do you have the strength to lead this country? Are we going to be dealing with clinical visits around the world? Because we don't even have hospitals here to deal with that. We are a point where 80 million people voted and had their PVCs, 86 million, actually. And only 28 million people voted. Of that 28 million people that voted the last time, 15 million voted for the winner and 13 out of million for the next person. If you understand what that... People don't care. If you tell me these big parties are so big, how come they didn't get 15 million votes? 15 million is not an indication of your size. It's just a pathetic number. And we're living in a country that was voted for for 28 million people. Young people are tired. They want to know who you are and what you're bringing to the table. You tell me about your ambition. You tell me how you're going to fix it. Because nobody's talking about how they're going to fix security. Look at this issue that's happened. Look, this is where you see leadership, where a leader will come up with big parties. Nobody's come out and said what they're going to do to stop this from happening. How do they intend to fix the problem? Because they can't. The reason they can't, because the system they're in is the same system they're going to get and inherit when they get back. We need a paradigm shift in the way Nigeria works. And it takes somebody who's not part of the corrupted system. I'm not talking money corruption politically because you have to compromise if you're in any of those two large parties. If you're in one of the newer parts, or if suddenly somebody like myself, I would certainly lean across party lines to find the best people. Because I don't have that infrastructure, but I would find the best people that I can hold accountable. And if you're in these large parts that have ruled Nigeria for the last 30 years, there is no accountability. And we're just going to suffer the same plight. And young people are tired. They want to see fresh ideas. What represents them must be the one they see on television that's talking to them, that's not afraid, that will tell them the truth and speak to them. Because the power is with the people, not with the president of this country. And they become laws. They become these people that are unapproachable. You have to go and give them the ranka deli or dobali or whatever you need to do in order to speak to your leader. When you should be able to communicate with your leader in the spirit of the day, young people rule this country, whether you like it or not, they're the ones that are going to vote. And I don't believe that anybody that is sitting there with a wise head on their shoulders is going to look at the array of people and go back to what's been the insanity of the past. And that's why you see parties, where you see other individuals bringing themselves forward. Whether it's media hype or not, at some day I hope the media will play their part. And the media is to bring everybody to the fore and scrutinize us in front of the public so the decision can be made by the voters. And that's what I'm looking forward to. And finally, just before I let you go because we're almost out of time, your base obviously is the young people and that's your targets. Of course, you want every other Nigerian to vote for you, but looking at the spread of the YPP across the country, are you making the effort to get more young people as your base in the different parts of the country? What is the stretch of your structure and your base? Is there a daily canvas and voter education process going on out there through your political party to get more people involved? Well, I think that if we're going to compete with the two large twins in the way they do things, all of us would fail. And that's why you see individuals and social media doing a lot more work. The grassroots canvassing is a little bit more different. It's a little bit more pointed. Some of us have catchment areas of voters. I'm not going to go to the east and compete against somebody or the northwest or northeast. I have my own catchment area and that is the central part of this country. That's where my appeal base first. You're going to be strong at home and I'm going to be just your state. That is my catchment area. And the young people in that catchment area need to believe in me so that I can go forward with confidence to the other areas and fight for the cause that I believe in. The YPP has structure. The thing is, you don't want to do is underestimate anybody. If you get into a boxing ring, you don't say, don't hit me because I'm older than you or I'm a woman. You get into that boxing ring. It says, protect yourself at all times. We're here to compete for the mindset of Nigeria. Hearts and minds is what we're competing with. But you must come with intellect. You can't just come there and say, it's my ambition or I've got a following and people have to be obedient to me. I'm not looking for that. I need to fix some things for us to go forward. All right. Well, Prince Malik Adoibrahim is the presidential candidate of the Young Progressive Party YPP. Thank you so much for speaking with us. We appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. And that's it. We'll take a quick break when we return. We'll be talking with a member of the House of Representatives and a former member of the House of Representatives on the solutions that we can get in dealing with terrorist attacks, especially after the Kuji prison attack. Stay with us.