A frontline senatorial hopeful, Dr. Abdullahi Belel has pledged to ensure the evolution of credible, transparent, inclusive and all encompassing system that will carry everybody along in governance processes if elected as the senator representing Adamawa north senatorial zone.
Belel who is vying for the position on the platform of the New Nigerian People’s Party (NNPP) said his political party is the only party that will give Nigerians a good bargain considering its stance to carry every Nigerian along in its strides.
Belel in a no hold barred chat with our reporter noted that maladministration, exclusion of the majority of the populace in economic and developmental programs, policy summersaults and executive highhandness are some of the major causes of poverty, restiveness, underdevelopment, unemployment and high rate of crime in the polity.
He noted that the only place that offers the best opportunity for him to correct the many ills dogging his people is through the legislative arm of government which informed his desire to represent his people at the highest law making body in the land.
“Nigeria is on autopilot because it has not been calibrated very well. And many of the parameters we use to calibrate our economy, social development are being put in place by copy and paste from other places.
“But over the time we failed to reformulate and put a robust development agenda and this has been clogged by so many policies and laws that are also impeding the progress of coming together to chart a development course for us.
“So there is no other place that can give better opportunity of recalibrating us to put us on the path of development than the national assembly. It is a place in which the most extreme aspect of regulation take place.
“But understanding what regulation is, if given the opportunity, we will also enlighten our colleagues to understand how to approach the recalibration and inclusion of every citizen in governance so that as more people are participating, the human capital development will be accelerated.
“When we create the model we feel we want, we as legislators can come and say these are the laws that we want to put in place to consolidate and protect these models that we agreed upon,” he said.
He noted that the only way Nigerian challenges can be addressed is through transparent, honest and all encompassing leadership that ensures every Nigerian attains his full potentials.
Belel who condemned the leading Nigerian political parties for institutionalizing corruption, and maladministration urged Nigerians to jettison them come 2023 in other to have a break from the pervasive social and economic conundrums that have held the country by the jugular.
“NNPP is the only party that can bail Nigeria out of our political logjam because the ideals that APC lost are even more entrenched in NNPP than anywhere. And I’m happy through consultations and agreements I became the flagbearer of NNPP for Adamawa northern senatorial seat and as I have said, the race has started we will convince the people to understand why we are in the race and what we shall offer. We need to accelerate development.
“We need to reorient the people about what development is. When I started this introduction I talked about political, social and economic development I even relegated the infrastructural development because it will naturally fall in place when development is right,” he said.
He noted that the recent primaries of the two major political in which the respective party tickets at different levels went to the highest bidder portents a bleak future for the country noting that unless the odious trend is addressed holistically, Nigeria will continue to trudge on the inexorable path of economic and social perdition.
“The two major political parties could not manage themselves well and cannot manage the country well. I thought with time they will learn from their mistakes but everyday they are making more and more mistakes because they do not want to change. It was as a result of that that NNPP came on board to correct those mistakes and properly engage the people.
“I want to say the acceptability of our party is very high. I thank the party leader, Eng Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso for giving us the opportunity and the platform, without discrimination. He has allowed everyone to get involved. When I went for the declaration and the affirmation I was surprised to see teeming members of other political parties who want to be part of us because they were failed by their parties.
“These parties have the opportunity to empower people but they did not and left the people in dispair,” he said.
Belel blamed the political leadership of the major political parties over the descent and complete monetization of the primary election in which delegates virtually sold their franchise to the highest bidder.
“Once there is poverty, people cannot use their heads to think and you know the delegates that went to represent the people in those two parties were victims of bad governance and they have demonstrated what they can do when you became a victim and all of us are now crying.
“So I think coming back to the issue of what I was saying about recalibration put everybody on the path of financial inclusion so that people can be above what to eat. When that is done, people can tell you their minds. We will put a political roadmap in 2023 in which no one will be left behind, everybody will be included and be part of governance,” he said.
Belel noted that it is disturbing to note the declining quality of political leadership observing that the leadership recruitment process has been bastardized to the extent that leadership became an all comers affair.
“Adamawa northern zone has been the backbone of the state because it produced many governors and we have the capacity to propel the economy of the state but unfortunately as you can see over the years, we are declining and a lot of what we are depending on are becoming eroded particularly when it comes to our ranking.
“If you just go back to the recent history, when this political dispensation started, Adamawa State sent the most formidable team to the red chambers in 1999. We have professor Iya Abubakar, our senator, Professor Jibril Amin, as senator from the central zone and Professor Zwingina as senator from the southern zone.
“We were very proud of having a very good representation and they made us proud and everybody wants to associate with Adamawa State but along the line, somehow, the political processes became degraded to the level where anybody can scramble for the seat forgetting about those responsibilities that seat has to offer and the responsibilities are enormous.
“To bring the global focus on a small area like Adamawa north definitely requires a very strong and purporseful leadership that can bring the unity of the stakeholders and put a formidable agenda for development including political development, social development and economic development.
“As you can see many things are happening people are only scrambling for the seat without expecting the reason why democratic design gave us this separation of functions of the three arms of government to propel development not to antagonize development. So I felt my party that I belong to the APC has lost focus and I became vindicated when the conduct of the primaries became for the highest bidder and that is very unfortunate,” he said.
