In the coming months Nigerians will be going to the polls for the 2023 general elections and the clamour for increased women representation continue to be one of the burning issues. National Chairman, the Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu Support group, AATSG, Otunba Abayomi Odunowo in a chat with our correspondent Ebi Kesiena says that more than anything the country should be fair to women among other issues.
What is your Dream for Nigeria
The dream for Nigeria is clear, all we are all asking for is good equitable country, a country that would support the efforts and dreams of all Nigerian youths so why should we not ask for a better country that rewards hard work, a country that is secure, that will provide job opportunities and 24hrs power for people who do not know anyone, it should be a meritorious society and these dreams can be achieved under the presidency of Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu
Why Tinubu
We have had many candidates that have contested presidential elections in Nigeria and this is a different kind of candidate because he is a man of promise and he has done a template that no other Nigerian has been able to match and he is a human capital developer, he is the most destabilised Nigerian who single handily bridged the gap between the south and the north with the merger of ACN, CPC and some other political parties. ACN & Tinubu came on board this APC arrangements with 7 governors while the others came with 1 each.
Even at that ACN conceded the presidency to PMB so as to bridge the north south distrust on the very special understanding some other Leader will not as politics is a game of numbers and advantage, believe me Tinubu is a true leader of leaders. I believe that at this point in time in the history of Nigeria we need someone like him that will refocus, redirect and harness all the opportunities in this country. I also believe our party APC would not make a mistake.
How do you see the issue of security now in Nigeria?
On the issue of insecurity, it’s a very daunting issue because the current government has done a lot but it seems like nothing has been achieved as it appears to be escalating.
What Will Tinubu do about security?
What I believe will happen is engagement with all the communities that have security challenges so that they can jointly proofer a lasting solution.
We believe Tinubu alone cannot solve all the problems in Nigeria but he will engage Nigerians so that together we can find permanent solutions that can be implemented in a timely manner.
What is your take about Women?
For women participation in politics, we are requesting for the support of all women in Nigeria to demand for 45% percent of women representation.
Come 2023, we at AATSG are appealing to all the political parties to give a quota of 45% to Nigerian women and we are also requesting for the first female vice president in Nigeria. In addition to that we are requesting for at least 20% percent female governors and deputy governors come 2023 it is an issue that we cannot compromise, the country should be fair to Nigerian women.
What is the idealogy of the AATSG.
We have the mandate to mobilise 50 million voters for AAT during the election and in order to achieve this we have created structures across the 37 states, 774LGS, 8812 wards and 145, 000 pooling units. The objective is simple, a lot of people do not know much about the man Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu, there has been a lot of conflicting issues, he left office over 20 years ago and his template is still in use. If someone has achieved such feet, I believe the right thing to do is to allow him come and put a template for Nigeria.
There is so much complains going on in the country despite the fact that Nigeria is the most blessed country that I know, there is no place like Nigeria, the culture, the people everything about Nigeria is perfect all we need is a more purposeful leadership.
Am not saying other leaders have not done well, they have done their best but right now Nigeria needs more and that person is Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu.
The group is not a one-off group for election we will constantly engage with the government to ensure that all the promises made is met and when the government is not doing well, we call the government’s attention to it, we will provide a steady flow of information to those in government which presently many of them are lacking, people around government always tell them what they want to hear so will ensure that government gets the raw unadulterated information and we also see to its implementation.
There is presently a disconnect between the party APC and the people at the grass root level, and that is dangerous for the party and we have started galvanizing it. We have inaugurated the southwest and their structure from state to polling units have been created and they have already started work, so also we have done the North East, we will advance to South South very soon. We would also be inaugurating the North Central in Abuja and the Northwest in Kano immediately after Ramadan. We also will be launch the Jagaban Mobile App on the 1 st of May 2022 at the National Convention center. With all these in play we hope to galvanise and cement the relationship across Nigeria.
With the clamour from young people for young leadership?
Age has nothing to do with performance, AAT is one person that has outperformed others in everything he does. and in order for him to run an effective government he needs 90 senators, 360 House of Reps members, about 37 ministers, with over 200 parastatals.
The youths should embrace leaning to understand the way it is. Governance is not as easy as people perceive it, when one is in office you begin to understand the seriousness of the job, the responsibility of the job and all. With the antecedents of Tinubu he loves to empower youths once the youth has capacity and if you look at the team he has built over the years, I have not seen anyone who has built such a team, he does not believe in religion or tribe when it comes to deliverables but performance. I have also seen him proofer solutions to issues that others where not thinking about.
A case of when he was in government as a governor at that point in time, he decided to provide power in Lagos state and the federal government shut it down, the F.G refused to give him his monthly allocation for 3 years and nobody in Lagos knew that a thing like that had happened. He brought the revenue of Lagos from 300million to 46billion. Lagos is there to show his good works. It all has to do with some one that thinks and has a strategy and eye for identifying talents and purposeful leaders, see the retina of powerful leaders from his political tutelage.
Throw light on the organisations mobile App “JAGABAN”
Because information dissemination is the key part of engaging the Youths in the narratives, we in AATSG, have come to realise that we need to harness all the information flowing around in a purposeful and timely manner so that we can have a good delivery process which is why we intend to launch JAGABAN by the 1st of May 2022. The mobile App JAGABAN, will follow all the campaigns, and provide information accurately in a timely manner, all the promises in areas that can be referred to years after now and also create an avenue for people who have the app to engage their elected candidates, so that we can curb the case of “after election you cannot reach out to them again”. The App is also designed for the signing on of registered voters who need to support independent candidates by acquainting the information and delisting it to INEC securely in a timely manner.
With these app you can constantly interact with your elected candidates.
All we need is the elected candidate to also download the apps.
The number needed to disseminate the information is from 10-15 million people to buy into the concept, then we are going somewhere.
