We want to create a Nigeria where ordinary people can rise to the top on merit –Durotoye

Fela Durotoye, a management consultant career coach, is the presidential candidate of the Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN) in the 2019 elections. He recently had a chat with some journalists at the side line of the presentation of the vice presidential candidate of the party and he spoke about his plans for the country and why he believes that restructuring the country will be in the interest of all. THERESA TEKENAH was there.

Most people just come into politics s and their focus is about getting there, and when they finally gets there, they have nothing to offer, because they didn’t expect that they will get there. Do you have plans to take off immediately, instead of taking months to start planning?
Yes, we have plans. In fact, we unveiled our blue print, our primary blue print on May 29, 2018. So we’ve unveiled and you saw a 10 point agenda.

If you want it, we can send it to you. We’ve unveiled a blue print for more than 6 months now and its constantly being revised and updated. So we are not one of those that are coming in without believing.

We believe very strongly in the new Nigeria, we believe that the people who are tired of the way things are today are ready to vote for a new Nigeria.

So we are not one of those people who are trying, and do not expect that we will win. So we are ready and I’ve said this before, by May 29th, my inauguration day, we should be announcing most of our cabinet members and we hope that by the grace of God, this would be the fastest cabinet that would have been formed as we have seen in other countries.

What would Nigerians gain from Mr. Fela Durotoye’s presidency?
I believe that Nigerians first and foremost, will gain the opportunity to pursue their lives happiness and more importantly, they would gain a nation that they would be proud of.

And in order to be able to extend opportunities for all, we believe that three things will have to happen, number one, we are going to gain the kind of leadership and governance that serves them, we want a government or leadership that would serve Nigerians, not Nigerians serving them.

We want a government that will be efficient and we would reduce wastages in government. More importantly, we would reduce corruption and show real credible leadership.

The Second thing that Nigerians would gain is that we would see our economy grow because we are going to diversify our economy and with the growth of the economy, all across Nigeria, because we believe very strongly that there are natural resources that are untapped in every local government,

so what our focus is, is turning the local government into economic hubs and industrial zones, we believe that with that, we would see job opportunities happen all across Nigeria, but that’s not all.

We also know that we would see a new Nigeria, with the reorientation of a new Nigeria, we would see Nigerians emerge as people who other people would love to work with and in doing this,

we would have a nation where there are opportunities for all, a nation where anybody who is the son of a nobody can become somebody without knowing anybody, we would see a nation where people are safe and productive and we would have the opportunity to prosper.

We would see a nation that invest and values it’s own human capacity and institution development. We would see a nation where people are safe and secure, where power is constant, where you can see roads that have no pot holes on them.

These are not empty promises, they are the values that we carry. We would see investment in education, we would see the development of human capacity, mentoring, we would see, you know, the skill of young people.

This is all the things that we would do. Now just to quickly say, it’s so easy for politicians to always say these things. So you have to go back and say, what were we doing before we started this journey? And you would see all the things that I’ve been talking about.

You would see that I’ve been mentoring people, through the Fela Durotoye network, we got over 30,000 people I’ve been mentoring over the years.

You would see that we’ve worked and invested social projects like education, and have helped to design not only educational programmes that have taken some states like Oyo State from number 23, 24 in Lagos State to number three and four in 2009.

You would see that we have a value system that had been re-orientating Nigerians, that have now been signed off by more than a million people, the value system that has today been adopted by Anambra State and has completely turn Anambra education around.

So what I’m saying is that, a lot of things that I’m promising are the same thing that we’ve been doing before, the growth of businesses, growth of job opportunities, respect for human beings, new value systems, safety and security.

These are some of the things that we’ve been doing all these while and Nigerians will see and most importantly, Nigerians will become proud of their nation.

We have been hearing about this statement from different politicians. Each time they give us these promises, why should we see yours as different?
The first thing I want to say is, look at politician’s life before they started running for their political race and if you can find any consistency between who they were before they became politicians and what they are saying now that they are politicians, then you have found someone that you can trust.

It’s about looking at the constituency, looking at their track record, and looking at the consistency in their vision, especially, through the actions that they’ve taken in the past to support that vision when they were not in office. I think this is the most important thing.

It is very clear that politics is a game of number and many people see you and the party as they party of the elite. But politics of Nigeria today is about the grassroots, the not too elite, the middle class. So how have you been able to build your structure to get you votes to become president in 2019?
I believe that we are a party for all and we are a party that seeks to create opportunity for all not just the elite, and we are not the party of the elite,

we maybe people who have had access or privileges to good education and some of the best things that Nigeria has to offer but our mind, making sure that the things that we have enjoyed as privilege must be available to all.

So if its education, it should be available to all, the problem of Nigerians are the politicians who created this problems for us. Today the economy is not working for anybody. Today, power is not working for everybody, it’s not about elite.

Everybody to a large extent is suffering, especially the people out there who do not have the privilege that we have. So, if you go and look at it, those are the people we are fighting for.

We are fighting for that young man who is struggling to go to school, but is not even sure that he would get a job. We are fighting for that money, that single mother who is trying to get all her money just to make sure that her son goes to school.

This is not a fight of the elites, this is a fight for all. And so to a large extent, you would see that all of the things that we’ve been talking about the new Nigeria, it is something that everybody wants.

So our message is not an elitist message, it is message that resonates with everyone, and when we were going to start our campaign, guess where?

We started our campaign in Ajegunle, and you could see that our presidential campaign did not start in Hilton or in one of those other places. We started on the streets.

And guess why we could start on the streets, safe, because we have been on the streets for the last 13 years.

Much of the work we’ve been doing were not in elitist camps, they were on the streets touching people in IDP’s, on the street, touching the poor and lifting the people who are the under in IDP’s, touching the poor, lifting the people who are in the South. So, this is not an elitist movement.

This is a movement of people who care, and are making sure that they can extend the privileges that they give to other people. So this is really a campaign of the people.

It is the people, not the elite that have been supporting this movement with their, 1,000 their 2,000 their 5,000. These are the people that have done this.

It’s not the by boys, it’s not the elites that have guided the campaign. This is a campaign of the people of Nigeria for the people and we have, our party has structure down to every ward.

We have street captains that are walking the streets and recruiting people. This is not an elitist movement at all. This is a movement for all, and the new Nigeria is for all.

The place where the son of a nobody can become somebody without knowing anybody. A new Nigeria with opportunities for all.

There have been calls for restructuring the country, as many believe that one of the reasons Nigeria is not working is because of the way it is structured, so much power at the centre. What is your view of restructuring? If you are elected president, will you restructure the country?
When I am elected as president of Nigeria, yes indeed, we will restructure the country and we believe that the structure of the economy is extremely important especially as it relates to many things, number one, devolution of power.

Too much power is at the centre. Like we said for instance, the security, today you make the governor the chief security officer of the state and yet he does not have even the chief security officer reporting to him.

We need to make sure that we can empower people when you give them responsibility, you have the authority to be able to do so. We need to empower the local governments.

They are the ones that are mostly touching the lives of the people, but the local government get crumbs from the contribution and more importantly, you would realise that the local government themselves are the custodians of the wealth of this nation, but because they do not get what you would call a proper share of the revenue, they are disempowered.

What we want to say is whatever is that you take from any community as a resource that comes into the federation account, 20 percent of that revenue should go to the community, 20 percent should go to the local government and 20 percent should go to the state,

and the Federal Government should be able to operate with 40 percent, a complete shift from what we currently have today, where the Federal Government only gives 13 percent to states, most of it will never get to the local government and would never get to the community,

so what we are saying here, by restructuring our economic base, we have the opportunity to encourage and inspire the communities all across Nigeria to begin to say we would get more out of all the things that we give and therefore to a large extent,

we will see our economy grow all across the nation and to a larger extent, job opportunities all across the nation.

Corruption is the order of the day in Nigeria, do you have any fears that if you get majority votes, it wouldn’t count?
It would count because I believe this particular election is where the two established parties are doing anything to make sure every votes count, and they would stop the other one from rigging. And whilst they are stopping themselves from being able to rig, every vote will count.

The second thing I will say about vote counting is very simple, that illusion that the vote would not count is something that the political class sent to the elite especially to keep them from coming to vote.

If votes do not count, why do the politicians buy it? Would you buy something that does not count? And it is the political class that usually buys vote.

So it is something that they know. They know that votes count. So I want everybody who believe that their votes doesn’t count, to use their rights.

The politicians have shown us, not only do your votes count, they are valuable too.

So you go out and cast your vote and I believe very strongly that 50 million people who normally would not vote for APC and PDP their votes will count and we would get a new generation of nation builders that would build Nigeria into a great nation for all.

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We also know that we would see a new Nigeria, with the reorientation of a new Nigeria, we would see Nigerians emerge as people who other people would love to work with and in doing this, we would have a nation where there are opportunities for all, a nation where anybody who is the son of a nobody can become somebody without knowing anybody, we would see a nation where people are safe and productive and we would have the opportunity to prosper.