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 Ere-ebi Agedah says that more than anything the country should be fair to women among other issues.
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 when the merged with CAN, CPC and some other political parties. He came on board with 7 governors while the others came with 1 each. Even at that he conceded the presidency to some one else he is a leader of leaders. I believe that at this point in time in the history of Nigeria we need someone like him that will retune, refocus, redirect and harness all the opportunities therein our country.
Dream for Nigeria
The dream for Nigeria is clear, we want a better county that rewards hard work, a country that is secure, that will provide job opportunities for people who do not know anyone, it should be a meritorious society and these dreams can be achieved under the leadership of Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu
On the issue of insecurity is a very dauting issues because the current government has done a lot but it seems like nothing has been done and it appears to be escalating. What I believe will happen is engagement with all the communities that have security challenges so that they can proofer solution. Tinubu alone cannot solve all the problems in Nigeria but he will engage so that solutions can be proffered an implemented in a timely manner.
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 AASG are requesting that the political parties must have female vice presidents and they must produce at least 20percent female governors and deputy governors in 2023 it is an issue that we cannot compromise with, the country should be fair to women.
What is the idealogy of the AATSG.
We have the mandate to mobilise 50 million voters for AAT during the election and in other to achieve this we have created structures across the 37 states, 774LGS, 2600 wards and 45,000 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 leader 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 governments 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 information and we also see to its implementation. There is a present disconnect between the APC and the people and we hope to galvanise and cement the relationship.
With of the clamour from young people for young leadership
Age has nothing to do with performance, AAT is one person and in other for him to run an effective government he needs 90 senators, 360,000 House of Reps members, about 37 Senators, about 37 ministers, over 200 parastatals
The youths should embrace leaning to understand the way it is. Governance is not as easy as people perceive it to you, when one is in office you begin to understand the seriousness of the job, the responsibility of the job and all. With the antecedence 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 who does not believe in religion 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 3years 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
Because information determination is the key part of engaging the youths in the narratives we in AATSG, came to realise that we need to harness all the information flowing around in a purposeful delivery process which is why we are going to launch by the 1st of May the mobile App JAGABAN, it will follow all the campaign, all the information, 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.
With the app you can constantly interact with your candidates.
All we need is number enough to disseminate the information, if we can get from the start 10-15 million people to buy into the concept we are going somewhere.