 Abbas Anjar tells youths to take over leadership and take control of Nigeria. Well, tonight we discuss choosing the right leader as we gear up for 2023 election, and five worshippers abducted and oppressed burned alive in Niger State. This is cross politics. I'm Mary Anipol. Former President Lucia Abbas Anjar has called on Nigerian youths to present a united force and take over leadership control of the nation from the older generation. He challenged youths to get together and bring about a truly meaningful change in their lives and that's of the nation. The former president, while noting that the older generation of leaders had done their best, advised them to take the rest and retire as subtergenerians and also as the drum bits of 2023 general election gets louder, various characters are throwing their hats into the ring and moving to the rhythm. The choice we make in 2023 will substantially determine the future of our country and that of the next generation, hence our conversation tonight. Well, joining us to discuss this is Jimmy D. Suhi, he is a public affairs analyst and he's also a journalist. Thank you so much Jimmy for joining us in the studio. My pleasure. It's a pleasure. I mean, I feel like we had to call the presidency to get you to be here today. Abbas. Well, it's a pleasure. It's so good to have you, John. Yes, Maria. Maria. When I decided to have this conversation, I was, you know, playing it in my head, who would be the best person to have this conversation with? But then you came up. My name came up. Yes, and then he didn't even hesitate. You said, yes, I'll do it. Oh, yeah, I mean, because I believe that one owes the nation that has been good to him. I mean, I'm moving towards being a nervous statesman and when you see things going on, I don't think it's rather nice and tidy for those who know to keep quiet. More so, when things are going, what I would call in the opposite direction. I'm beginning to think, which I said on my program, the program that I do on another station, that this election is gradually becoming something like a fast and like a time bomb. And that worries me, that worries me a lot. And I don't think I need to express it on that much because if you look at the three leading candidates, the three leading, I don't know how many there, 16, look at that, can't even remember. I can't name five or six, just the three didn't want. You find that a disaster could be looming. I can take them one by one. I won't mention their names, I don't want to embarrass anybody. There's one that I am sure can hardly string two sentences together in writing or what is, you ask yourself, so are we going to have a president who would do nothing but delegate? We need a president that is hands down. We need a young president, we need a viral president who is physically fit. I had it through a good fellow on Saturday on my program and I was so pleased. Yesterday was one of the best days in recent times for me when I read and then listened to Pastor Trudebacare and I'm glad that people are speaking up. All this nonsense about if a president would delegate and so on and so forth. We don't want, if somebody is going to delegate to go to the United Nations to attend state visits and so on and so forth and everybody is being a child here all because mainly for selfish reasons. Well that's one. The second one itself also has an albatross around his neck. He has an albatross around his neck. You ask yourself with all the questions that are unanswered about corruption and things, allegations and so on and so forth, the least we can have of 200 million Nigerians for God's sake have somebody who is upright. That shouldn't be too difficult even within the political parties. The previous one that I said I could name one or two people that would have fit the bill for them rather than these facts that we have. The third one is somebody who, okay, everybody looks up to that. He might make the difference. But hey, this man is going to go into the presidency without any presence in the National Assembly. Both Senate and House of Reps. And I can bet my last dollar is going to go to meet a very extremely hostile civil service because over the years, a civil service has changed completely. Buhari didn't win his second whatever in House of Rock. He lost there. That tells you a lot. And when you hear things like a counter-general has this money, that one has that money, you jolly well know what to aim for. So any which way you're looking at it, it's like we're planting a terrible seed. So it makes us wonder whether you go, but I want to start by asking. Yes. Do Nigerians really know what kind of leader they need? They don't. Why do you think so? Yes, because, okay, by nature of our job, we talk to various people. And they don't seem to have a clear understanding. One video that shows this so clearly, and I've always said that. It's as if the man, you know, I'm just joking, plagiarize my thoughts. I don't say that. When this reverend or this priest said in a church sermon, and he said, look, all of you who know who you're going to vote for, put your hands up, they did. Now, how many of you can vote that the next child that comes to your family, either your child or your grandchild, should be like this particular character. Some started looking for their shoelace. Some were looking for something in their handbag. So you can see you are ready to vote, and these were not just nobody's. You are ready to vote for somebody whose character you can't even emulate. I mean, look at our elections, for example. We keep talking about we don't know the father, we don't know the brother. We had some cases involving drugs. Somebody has accused him of corruption everywhere. And all these dirty things come up. I hear Nigerians think that it doesn't matter. That it doesn't matter. It's always about tribalism, about religion, and Maryam, the worst of it all, is always about money. And like Pastor Bakari said, how can you have a leader, for example, who has visibly shown that it's about his own self-interest by saying that it's my turn, you know, and look at the various tricks that have gone. Somebody's identity was stolen to make a video, Donald Duke, you know, used for last song with that copyright, fake bishops and so on and so forth. You have that, all that on one end. On the other side is the optics don't look too good. But the third loner himself, I worry about him because I wonder, I ask myself, how far can this guy go? How far can he go? Because if you're going to put it down to brass stacks, where he comes from is going to be a problem. When he becomes president, I support that the next president, if we can, should be from the southeast. There's a politics of that outside. But it's also going to be a problem. It's going to be watched every step. There are going to be various banana peels from the civil service. It's going to have problems, even with the politicians in his own party who will be saying that, no, it's reward time. What do we get? So the whole thing, I can't say that we are not ready. We've had a lifetime to be ready every four years. What are we ready for? What we are ready for, between you and I, is domiciled in each individual and is really selfish. It's really selfish. We don't understand the issues. I had somebody, you know, I'm from Europe, I'm from the West, we must vote for that candidate. I said, what does that do to you? See how far up the presidency is. What do you gain? And they couldn't understand until I took him through. For example, I have said that if tomorrow, Buba Marwa wants to run for election in Lagos Abbey, he's campaign manager. And Amila Gosian. But he's not elected. But he's not, unfortunately. But Amila Gosian on both sides, father, mother, I'm just trying to say, we need to be broad-minded. We need to be open-minded. Marwa is one of the best governors who've had this state. And if he wants to, I'm just using this as an example. But instead, and we allow these politicians to feed us with all these divisive things. Again, since you're talking about the divisions, because I was watching Shatom House conversation today with Peter Albee, and I really appreciated when somebody asked him that, you're talking about figures and you're talking about how you would do this and do that. What about the deep-seated problem of divisions, whether it be that's of ethnicity or religion? How do you hope to unite Nigerians and how do you hope to stem the agitations that have been happening? And he answered, I think he said that there has to be fairness of sorts across the board that if you deal with that, then you can deal. But sincerely, if we have continuously had these problems and every time a leader comes, we ask them a question, they give us something that placates us. But then in reality, nothing is done to blur those lines. Some of the leaders that you have now are not even giving you anything to placate you. They call your bluff. They don't want to talk to you. They determine who they want to talk to. I've never been so insulted as a voter in my country as I have now. I've never seen it. And I mean, in my late 60s, I've been through, I don't think five or six elections. I've even been more respected under the military than under this current dispensation that we have. The arrogance. What do you think informs that? What do you think informs the attitude? What has informed, I think what has informed all this is because most of them know they are not wanted by the electorate. So they want, yes, they want to bully their way through. They want to bully their way through. Look at what is happening in my state. The things that we hear, you force people to rally, you force children to rally. If you look at the state, you think there's only one party. You can't find the billboard of any other party. Except one of Funchal Dwati. Heading somewhere in Nido. The whole place, water on land, on water, you know, is occupied by, and I said to myself, this is even worse than under military rule. You know? And everybody has this fear that, oh, I mean, look, everybody has to understand from the drivers, for example, whether you like it or not, you must put on the cap, you must do this. That is not democracy. We are going through a second slavery. We are under siege. And I think that worries to the Bakari. You need to watch that to the Bakari. It was someone in his church. Yes, and I think that's what worried Bakari, even though he didn't put it in those terms. But I'm going to give it straight. We are under siege. It's like, if you can't take it, that's it. Nobody does that. But there are people too, and like to the Bakari said, they have weaponized poverty. But that's not trust in Lagos. Sorry? That's not trust in Lagos. I'm using Lagos where I am as an example. I'm not saying just, of course it's all over the country, the weaponized poverty. Like Pasadibo said, these people you see at these rallies on a weekday, shouldn't they be at work? That shows you an army of unemployed people. And so they go there for at least two or three thousand lira. And then these politicians turn around and show us this crowd as if they came there on their own. But thank God for the social media. We've seen videos of people, they haven't paid my money. I think it was in Emo and it was way late. Only God knows what happened to him. But I fear for my country, people still don't understand how you would vote for people in the first instance of questionable character. I can't understand. Let's talk about character here. Let's talk about characteristics of a good leader. Because everybody is saying, oh, it's time for the young people, it's time for youths. But then I don't see somebody like you, I don't see you carrying a machete. It's still the young people. These are the people who came to disrupt the NSAS campaigns in different parts of this leg of state. So do these young people know who they should be picking? What should be the characteristics that we should all be looking out for? Because as you're saying that we have politicians who have questionable character, there are people who are up in arms for them blindly. So again, what exactly should we be looking at? Mr. Bakere also meant when he said they had weaponized poverty. This is what poverty gives you in the days of the UPN, the days of the action group when schooling was free. You think these people don't know when they don't let schools function? You think they don't know what they're doing when they tell you at some point. Don't forget, most politicians are the same. They take history away from the curriculum. And yes, later on I want to bring history back to the books. From what I'm out of the child-bearing age, I don't know if there's a tribulation, never know what will happen. But I show that to think about the new history books that we are going to see and the history that will come from it. So you find that the books of them are not educated. They've set their minds, they've weaponized their poverty and for a little bit of grass and the drink they'll go on a rampage. But I always ask them, their leaders, one of their leaders, two of his sons got first-class in an American university. All right? What I say to these boys and some of the girls therein is look at these people that you want to kill yourselves for and ask how many of them are on the streets like you. That is simple common sense. Even if you say you don't shuck now at least you go clear one day. You should ask yourself, you should tell them oh god we will go, but we want your son to lead us. But I have a friend called Captain Blade is a security expert and he called my attention to the fact that something has treated the mind of the average Nigerian and I tend to believe him. In modern times all kinds of things can be done and I don't even think he's Nigerian alone. I think he's African. We always take the wrong side of any stick. Yes we see the wrong side of any stick because the issues the issues are so clear so very clear like from the days when I was in university in this country I know what we did and how we determined we were to serve our country because our country served us in the first instance. Our country served us in the first instance. It is a pity that the first republic and we should continue with that culture maybe we would have something with the semblance of proper democracy. At what point do you think we lost all of those values? Military especially when the footballer was there I leave you to guess who that was. It's military because what we had in the culture of the military they too weaponized poverty in a reverse manner where there were so many bricks in schools and so on and so forth because in any case I don't want to they are not academically minded of course you would understand that and they didn't want any form of opposition and so it started gradually from that point and what they did was also they were able to give out handouts to and that's where it all started it's from that group when we are going to hand over hand over politics the first set of politicians that emerged from that group there was a retired police officer who said when he got to that I think it was a senator way back then it was a retired DIG he could recognize so many people of we don't call them questionable character again we say of interest so many people of interest and I don't know who this election that we are going to have people say it will make or break our country I think that I think that if that election goes on it will make or break our country it might break it not necessarily into different parts but it might break you will be having a completely different country because the leadership is suspect I'm not going to come and sit down and lie the leadership that we are being given is suspect look at one of the parties you had brilliant minds you didn't need to go far you had brilliant minds okay but you went to the fifth grade so again just as you said we saw all of the top political parties and the conventions and we saw like you said interesting people people who are brilliant but then we saw how things turned whether it be party A or party B and a lot of us will say oh but Nigerians are on the side especially you you work on the radio you hear people call and say this country is bad so what are the people who give support to these same kinds of people because there are lots of them who come on the radio and what's very lyrical on social media but why don't we see the same action matched with the energy at these parties? because you see what we have is the master ground design of propaganda I tell you this we know the tricks you have a Shola, a Bumi and a Kaffa and Aruna whatever in the social media is one person you can easily organize one person to handle 30 Twitter accounts in a day even more so what you have is deceit what you have is real well prepared and organized takeover through propaganda and other means also through intimidation direct or indirect the level of abuse and wrong information out there to discredit people is alarming the question we should then ask ourselves is where is all this leading to state capture and it's all for resources and some of these people that we see we know what they have acquired from the state those of them who are like retired governors we know the kind of pension that they were paying to themselves who pays that kind of pension in any country a house in Lagos a house in Abuja at any cost car every 3 years is state capture and we can easily see some of the things not all that have been acquired through their influence and they do it reasonably for a president like President Buhari who had continuously run for this office on tail the first time when he got access who gave us 3 things to hold him to the fight against corruption putting an end to Boko Haram which he recently has passed himself on the back for and of course unemployment and underemployment and how do you even begin to remedy what's happening on this administration for a person like you who also threw your weight behind him Yes I threw my weight behind him and like my friend Moody says he fall my hand I tell you what he was I've been following Buhari from his first time apparently he's beginning to appear that he was in their month I was doing a lot of the things I tell myself I could be wrong but when we supported Buhari then what we thought what I thought in my head and I agree that I was politically naive in that thinking was that okay he would take issues of security and corruption hands down and then he had this wonderful professor who was his vice president that could be put to good use apparently he didn't work out that way there were stories of the first thing about what is ill health and when you are ill when you have ill health both physically and mentally you suffer and that is why we are saying that at the very least let the next president we are going to vote for let him be physically fit do you understand what I'm saying two of them now are not of the front runners and how they you know they keep spinning he is okay because there is a theory that says that if you keep telling a lie regularly at some point people perceive it as a truth how can any reasonable man any reasonable man not educated any reasonable man no matter look at some of the candidates and say this is fit this gentleman is fit to be president is it the mental capacity we will be talking about the physical ability is there for you to see that's why I don't argue with these people I know what is the grand design to keep telling you you have a presidential candidate who somebody has to stand behind him to whisper what he is going to say and then he even gets it wrong you know and the other one soon not too long ago joined him some of these people should actually retire at my age now I can't even take up the job of a local government chairman we need to do it effectively because I'm old I'm going to put you on the spot there are people who say that the front runners are 5 some would say they are 4 but let's leave it at 4 let's start with the Kwankwaso who many people have said oh he is smart he is intelligent he is above board he is not necessarily has so much corruption attached to him but let's start with the Kwankwaso I mean most people also say his critics say his powers just end around Kano and environments being that he has the Kwankwaso movement but what are his chances looking at it I think that unless he stretches his hand across I think his chances are pretty you know almost nonexistent I mean his bar base is in the mouth I mean so and then he has an article to contend with I mean so I don't think he has but I undercover I hear that there could be at some point someone might have written himself and will be if there is a runoff if there is a runoff so you have the opinion that there might be a runoff there might be a runoff because to get 25% in how many states now to get 25% you're supposed to get 25% in 36 states and the FCT it's going to be a problem for some of them let's talk about Peter Abbey there's that Peter Abbey phenomenon that's what it's called we've seen it on social media and they also tried to show us in person and he seems to be the golden child for this election season but like you had said earlier there are lots of things that you know they are living to time and chance which is the fact that the Labour Party may not have as many candidates but even if that were to be the case looking at Nigeria and what's happening right now and the debt profile that we have and all the problems that we have on every side even if it will be sent from heaven can he I said it as one I was referring to that first of all is the most intellectually endowed of the three of the four I think he has 10 times much better knowledge than you know the others but he doesn't have he's not going to have it's not even a majority now he'll have very little presence in the National Assembly and how much can a president do without the support of the National Assembly he's going to meet a hostile corrupt reading civil service are you sure that in Nigeria you know what happens when there's a winning party what do you suspect what I suspect would happen probably probably if he gets the ticket he'll be able to do something with article because they're quite close and he was a member of the PDP and so if he does that because that could happen because the moment he wins the moment he wins he has his cousins who are the PDP you know politicians will be scoring around and indeed you will get some of the APC people because you can't trust politicians they always tend to move so what not that it's going to be impossible but it's going to be difficult also with the civil service if you know what's going on and I don't need to go too far how could anybody have access to it's something I mean what kind of civil service is that so they will come against him all kinds of things will come against him but um let's talk article former vice president a lot of people would credit some of them very intelligent technocrats that worked with former president of Brazil because he handpicked them and many would also point to that as one of the reasons why he should be given an opportunity at the presidency but then we've also seen we've tried and tried and tried and we thought had the best intentions but what are best what are intentions if you know you can't really act on it so what are his chances who is that well I mean article has a you never know the way these things would go but I think that I think very strongly that article is probably in terms of knowledge of governments I put him up front but the baggage that he carries that corruption tag is difficult for me to ignore I think article has a way with all everything is prepared he probably will be more prepared than any one of them but that's not just enough also you have age against him then you have credibility you want a credible president that people would respect did you understand what I'm saying you want a credible that people would respect so that makes it a bit you know and then of course you don't have the backlash of the issue of whether the presidency should go to the mouth again yes you can't ignore that backlash even though it seems like he has moved on away from wiki and the g5 governments I can assure you because they've been isolated I never thought it was a smart move unless you want to walk away I never thought it was he can't go from where there is malaria to where there is cancer that's the way he described the apc so I think they've been isolated finally let's talk about tinibu I know that we've talked extensively about these candidates without calling their names but for tinibu we've seen I would say that this election is mostly original because we've seen people representing mostly regions supposed to be representing Nigeria and there seems to be more and more divisions recently Breymour got a backlash for saying something about the ebos and that's because he supports a south west candidate tinibu's emergence in the party how divided have we become more under his emergence has it affected us one way or the other his emergence in the party cash affair and politicians always think money money and position you know so and I had said this at once Nigerians that please note that the kind of person that the politicians will pick might not be the person that you think will be good for you because generally our politicians don't think of any other person but themselves and their interests but when we say politicians there are also normal I'm talking about the primaries that produced them it was a political affair I don't think it might apply to a general election and I also believe that the people who have been most unfair to tinibu as the people closest to him because you can see that it's not fit it's not fit amongst all other things then you have all these other questions on outside he won't attend debates and so on and so forth I mean come on I don't think I think people around here can put it out early enough that he was not going to be doing any interviews well yes you can say that but we also have a choice I'm not going to cast a vote for somebody who doesn't want to talk to me I felt insulted by that I mean if you want and if you look at most of the utterances of his party members it is not to encourage voters is to show their loyalty to him even some of his spokesperson your brief is to bring people into the party you'll be talking about when the jungle matures you'll be doing all kinds of things and showing loyalty to him because you want to position yourself and I look at these things and I smile they are doing the gentleman himself a disservice tinibu is a great man politically you can't take that away from him it would be sad if he goes down in this election in this manner it would be very very sad I have appeals to those who are very very close to him to say that okay because if he becomes president how is he going to do it is Nigeria now going to go another 8 years of in and out of hospitals and so on and so forth they say he will delegate we are not voting for delegates we are voting for an executive president unfortunately time is not on our side because I think I am going to bring you back here just before the election so we can talk more but the question still stands how ready are we for this election we are not ready if they were to do a poll if there were to be some kind of poll do you want this election to go on or not I say I am not excited about it I don't think we are what I say we are not ready it has nothing to do with INEC but we haven't imagined if in this election what is the name of the guy Chidoka we are talking about Chidoka from PDP and Oshiba Drew from APC and the Peter Obit from Labour then you know you are talking issues we are not ready this element that we have if care is not taken it is not going to lead us anywhere wow that doesn't seem to be a very good picture but GVBC is a public affairs analyst and a veteran journalist it is a pleasure to have you in this I hate it when I am called a veteran journalist it makes me feel like a relic it means that you know the business I live with GVBC well that's plus politics thank you so much we will take a quick break and when we return we will be discussing the terrorist attack in Niger State stay with us