PDP’s Zoning Of Presidential Candidate To South Is Strategic – Saltlove

Dr. Rexkennedy Saltlove, a political activist and public affairs analyst, is the President/Executive Director, Citizens Rights and Empowerment Advocacy Initiative (CREMA Initiative). He spoke to EJIKEME OMENAZU on some current national issues in the polity. Excerpt:

The Federal Government (FG) recent­ly attributed the depletion of external reserves on debt servicing. Yet, it has been accepting more foreign loans, especially the World Bank/IMF loan. What do you think has been the impact of Nigeria’s recent borrowings on economic growth?

The Bible in Proverbs 22:7 says: “The rich rule over the poor, And the borrower becomes the lender’s slave.” The implica­tion of this is simple. The person (Nigeria) with debt must make tradeoffs that prioritise the debt. Debt and debt servicing in sim­ple terms, means modern day slavery of Africa (Neo Colonisa­tion) The Federal Government always gives seemingly ‘good’ reasons why loans are taken or to be taken. But the impacts of these loans are seldom felt as per developmental projects. Nigerian leaders are short sighted. Most of the loans taken are not uti­lised for capital projects that can make the nation productive and resourceful. The loans do not en­hance development to help gener­ate hard currency exchange for goods/services and make our own currency strong. The loans borrowed are mostly spent on recurrent expenditures and si­phoned through corruption un­der the guise of doing one project that seldom impacts the citizens meaningfully, this has been the bane of our national develop­ment. The impact of President Bola Tinubu’s government bor­rowing is only evident in high inflation, insecurity, hunger and poverty ravishing the citizens. The impact of loan borrowed should be measured against ma­jor Key Developmental Perfor­mance Indicators. No Nigeria that is objective will admit see­ing much impact of these loans. Benjamin Franklin an American founding Father said: “He that goes a borrowing, goes a sorrow­ing”. Using foreign reserves to service loans is digging our own grave and postponing doomsday. Under this government the rich also cry. The impact of the loans is a reflection of how well the citizens and nation is holistical­ly. And by the available data, we are worse economically, securi­ty wise, health, education and naira purchasing power parity with other major currencies, as we are nose diving, going south and practically wiping out peo­ple’s means of livelihood. The government should tell us what impactful developmental project they have utilised loans for, pro­vide us with data while we fact check them. We have reason to doubt, it is government’s respon­sibility to prove us wrong in our skepticism

The Bola Tinubu administration has spent two years and four months now, while his party, the All Progres­sives Congress (APC) has already endorsed him as its sole candidate for second term. What is your assess­ment of the administration so far?

President Tinubu’s perfor­mance does not cheer Nigerians. His performance so far does give the average Nigerian hope. I am afraid that that situation is not reverseable in the near future. This is because President Tinu­bu has made his promise to his predecessor, late former Presi­dent Muhammadu Buhari and Nigerians that he would contin­ue from where Buhari stopped. Thus, it is not surprising that his administration has been in­flicting agony on the people and plunged Nigerians in penury. Ni­gerians are at the receiving end of the administration’s oppression, cruelty and impoverishment. In using Key Performance Indexes of citizens welfare , bothering on Economy, Security, Health, Edu­cation to mention a few, on scale 1-10, I will give the administration three, which is not a pass mark. On being sworn in, in his maiden speech, he removed the fuel subsi­dy that resulted in increased fuel pump price with hyperinflation on practically everything with nothing to buffer or anything to cushion it. While the shock effect of that was still hanging, the nai­ra was floated in his monetary policy reforms, making the naira lose its value massively against the dollar. The effect of that was, the naira which was ₦470+ to a dollar then, is currently trad­ing at ₦1,600+ to the dollar in today’s exchange rate. All these have been impacting negatively on the economy. Nigeria being an import dependent economy, has not recovered from the effects of these policies. These decisions that seem not to be well thought out before implementation, made importers transfer over the 300% increase on goods and services, and the majority of citizens who live below poverty have been bearing the costs. And the effect of these policies on the economy have further plunged the nation into the debt trap. In two years, Nigeria’s external borrowing is almost ₦100 trillion, that is over ₦93+ trillion indebtedness. Yet, nothing is being done locally to address it, thus mortgaging the future of the citizens. Except we have a Joseph mounting the throne in Nigeria, Nigerians are into modern day slavery. If we have things we are producing and exporting, outside oil, one would have hoped for something to fall back on to mitigate the imminent national bankruptcy. Unfortu­nately, the worrisome part of it is that borrowed funds are mainly spent on recurrent expenditures and corruption,with the leaders living large.

The second Key Performance Index is security. During Buhari’s eight years, reports had it that about 32,000 deaths occurred due to insecurity, averaging 4,000 year­ly. But, under President Tinubu, available data from some plat­forms or online publications which have not been refuted by the government is showing over 600,000 fatalities from May 2023 – April 2024, due to insecurity. May 2024 – May 2025, which is the sec­ond year, has not been included. That speaks of how much lives are being wasted under this gov­ernment in just two years, an in­dication that things are getting worse . On education, the best as­sessment is the massive failure experienced in the last UTME in which there was massive failure, where less than 30% of almost two million students scored below 200. Despite trying to shift blame to computer glitches for about 300,000 student or so results, one can still note, if all those 300,000 result were good 100% and add­ed to the rest who scored above 200, the percentage would still be dismal outing, telling us how deplorable education standard has dropped under APC and this administration in two years. And the implications of this, with our burgeoning populations is that, we will have less qualified per­sonnel to manage/handle citizens and that could be disastrous.. In the Health Sector, the best mes­sage on how good or bad we are is being communicated by our pub­lic leaders who are usually flown out for medical reasons. Our pres­ident and the governors as well as legislators always go abroad for treatment and medical check-ups. Nigerians believe that several of the President’s travels are health related.

It is true that there are no stan­dard public hospitals with good and advanced medical facilities that can handle critical health situations. That shows that our health sector is far from being ideal. And health, education and economy are strong areas where a president’s performances are measured. In view of the forego­ing, even if government honestly want to do a PR with some of its projects or policies, on/in the na­tion, it is like patting oneself at the back which is not very com­fortable, only citizens who are at the receiving end of governance, have the right to tell government that its policies had improved living standards, inspired hope, create faith in the system and im­proved the GDP and enabling en­vironment for economic growth and development. So, in accessing the government so far on scale 1-10, I will give them 2.5. This premise on the KPI’s listed. And whatever the government is doing to get the nation and citizens out from this quagmire, it is not yet felt at all.

A cross section of Nigerians believe that the greatest test opposition coalition under the African Demo­cratic Congress (ADC) would face is the choice of presidential candidate. How do you suggest they resolve this critical issue?

The formation of an opposition coalition to unseat the present government in power is a good idea. It takes a formidable oppo­sition to make the government in power sit tight and deliver gover­nance and dividends of democ­racy to the citizens. At this junc­ture, however, the right choice of presidential candidate by the opposition, will be a herculean task as it is believed in some quar­ters that the reason for the coali­tion is just greed for power and not ideological differences that brought them together. To this effect, there are a lot of political dynamics that should be weighed and taken into consideration, to ensure justice, fairness and equi­ty among the major ethnic groups and balance of the unwritten (un­constitutional) power rotation between the North and South. The All Progressives Congress (APC) was formed by the merger of three major Nigerian political parties: the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), and the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), along with a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alli­ance (APGA) that was formed in 2013 to remove, PDP ‘The biggest Party’ then in Africa as was then dubbed in 2015. Just two years. What was very notable about the coalition was the political sagac­ity of the ACN henchman, Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Despite being the major party in the coalition with five state governors in its fold in South West, for power to return to the North, he had to allow Bu­hari of CPC which had only one state then to contest. That ‘huge’ sacrifice made Buhari from the North, emerge as APC flag bearer in 2015 and unseat PDP, the ruling party which had been in power for 16 years. If ADC wants to pull a ‘miracle’, of unseating APC, pow­er must stay in the South. Thus, they have to choose a Southern candidate as its flag bearer. It is a sacrifice any Northerner must do. Most Nigerians are not card carrying members of any polit­ical party. But, they are versatile and want to do anything that will promote national cohesion. Nige­rians want justice, fairness and equity and will always support balance of power through rota­tion of presidency.

Do you think the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) is on the right path in zoning the 2027 presidency to the South?

PDP zoning of its presiden­tial candidate to the South is a strategic masterstroke. This is because, take it or leave it, the unconstitutional and unwritten agreement of rotational presi­dency, is subtly being entrenched in Nigerians psyche, that they believe it is the South’s turn and they should not only be in pow­er, but complete their two terms. This was the cries of Abubakar Atiku in the past that “It is the turn of the North”, that made for­mer President Obasanjo/PDP to bring up President Yar’Adua of blessed memories and Goodluck Jonathan as Vice President. I strongly believe, the success of the coalition of ANPP, CPC, ACN and a faction of APGA to unseat President Jonathan of South­ern extraction after doing one term, is to balance the equation of the North doing one term un­der Yar’Adua though he did not finish it. Well, there is a saying that ‘Karma is a bitch’. The say­ing would be fulfilled if Tinubu/ APC is removed from power in 2027. But, that can only happen if the opposition can put their house in order through this coa­lition and present an acceptable presidential candidate without rancour.