TheCable

Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, spokesman of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), says the quality of leaders that will emerge in the 2023 elections will determine the survival of Nigeria.

Speaking at the 2022 Pre-May Day symposium organised by the Kaduna chapter of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), Baba-Ahmed urged Nigerian workers to rise up to choose the right leaders for the country.

He said Nigerians have been governed by “poor leaders” in the past ten years and if the citizens do not get it right in 2023, the country may not survive.

“The 2023 elections is not an ordinary election, if we don’t substantially change the leadership of this country in 2023, this country is sunk,” Baba-Ahmed said.

“The politicians would use religion, party lines to divide us but in the end what will be left is a broken country of divided people.

“Nigeria has to go through a major reform and part of the process has to start now.

“We need to improve the quality of our leadership. In the last 10 years, we have elected poor leaders. We need to elect good leaders who will care about the poor, about the children of the poor, about the education of the poor, about security of everybody.

“We need to elect good leaders in 2023 or this country is finished.”

Baba-Ahmed added that Nigeria needs organisations like the NLC to raise their voices to demand good governance.

He also called on President Muhammadu Buhari to meet with relatives of persons kidnapped in the Abuja-Kaduna train attack.

“Why is labour quiet about issues affecting the country? Why is labour not talking in the face of the challenges facing the country?” he asked.

“Advice President Buhari to invite the families of those kidnapped Kaduna in train Abuja-Kaduna passengers train to tell them what government is doing and give them words of encouragement.

“Whatever government is doing, it should be improved upon. We cannot demand to know every detail of the negotiations with the bandits.

“Where is the president’s empathy? The wife of the president recently hosted politicians in the villa, why can’t the president host the relations of the abducted train passengers in the villa?

“We are about to get new government, labour needs to get involved as a participant, not as a bystander.”

He added that the NLC should be involved in the electoral process that would produce the next president.

“NLC should determine who becomes president, who becomes governor so that we won’t have leaders who don’t care about teachers and who treat teachers as they want,” Baba-Ahmed said.

“Everybody is moving away and leaving government to deal with people the way they want.

“Get involved, participate in the change of leadership, if you get a government who will commit in writing not to send their children to private schools, no teacher will send their children to private school.”