Dr. Allen Manasseh is the founder and Executive Director of lmpacttrust International, a community centred organisation promoting climate resilience and livelihood, inclusive governance and youth mentorship. He is equally a strategic team member of the #BringBackOurGirls movement and an active voice of the Chibok community in Borno State. Manasseh is also the MD/CEO of Fortune Allen Consult, a firm supporting organisations in ESG compliance policies, climate smart enterprise developments and business development. In this interview with OBIRE ONAKEMU, he speaks on sundry national issues, submitting that Nigeria needs urgent electoral and judicial reforms to be able to recruit value-driven leaders that can drive disruptive national development. Excerpts:

How would you comment on Nigeria’s political development in view of the current state of affairs in the country?
There are perspectives to what can be termed political development. While some may look at the current status of political leadership in Nigeria, others can look at the scheme of things around politicking, electoral umpire activities and the much needed electoral and judicial reforms being canvassed.

The political class, starting from the President, is delivering a mediocre leadership that is not inspiring the citizens. If you see anyone praising the current national leadership under the All Progressives Congress (APC), it’s either an appendage of power that is gaining from the national treasury or hirelings that are hailing mediocrity for crumbs. As a person, I am not impressed with the government and I haven’t seen performance that is worthy of a 65-year-old nation that has experienced lots of oil booms and is endowed with high human capital, full of the youthful age group that should be the strength of productivity, innovation, and disruptive governance that takes inclusivity and engagement of the young people seriously.

How would you rate President Bola Tinubu’s administration on the economy?
Capacity is on the global platform for sale. If you want to travel to the moon today, you do not have to start studying space science afresh; some people have done that. How did Singapore get it right? How are China and India getting right? What magic has Brazil done? What is Rwanda doing differently after the war? How can the giant of Africa, endowed with oil, solid mineral, human resources, be allowed to crawl like a toddler after 65 years of independence? It’s supposed to be a shame.

Therefore, let him assemble people of character, competence and capacity; men and women of courage, boldness, and selflessness that will work on evidence-based policies that are directed at solid nation building plans; not appointment as “food for the boys” kind of leadership. He should be transparent with the subsidy savings and let’s tag every dime going out to the state governors and the heads of MDAs to practical performances that are verifiable, productive, and beneficial to citizens; and end the hand-out kind of leadership and welfare that is just as conduit for corruption.

This government is too opaque and allergic to credibility, accountability and transparency. He should change. Any government that abdicates its number one constitutional responsibility of ensuring the security and welfare of its citizens is a failed government. Right now, we have terrorists controlling unnumbered places in Nigeria. The federal road to my local council is still under lock and key by terrorists after 14 years. We daily have our citizens being killed by different groups of terrorists – Boko Haram, bandits, Fulani herdsmen, unknown gunmen, Lakurawa, Ansaru, and now we have a brand new terror team in Kwara and Nasarawa states. This is a sign of failure of leadership.

To fix the economy, he should fix security, ensure every state is productive with the excess allocation, end opaque governance and operate open and transparent leadership that will inspire citizens to productivity. To earn the confidence of foreign investors, ease of doing business must be seen to be practical in Nigeria. He should simplify the tax system, reduce cost of governance, diffuse powers to the local councils, terminate the state electoral system, remove immunity and strengthen the judicial system to prosecute corruption in record time.

How do you see the rate of unemployment in Nigeria? Don’t you think it is at the root of the insecurity in the country?
The connection between unemployment and insecurity had long been established. It is a shame that we are now a country where our youths consider death in the desert while crossing to Europe through Libya rather than staying at home. We have seen what the japa syndrome has done to our institutions. How can we have over 70 per cent of our youthful population, out of over 230 million citizens, with over 36.9 million hectares of arable land, rice and wheat belt, fresh water lake and more, and still be hungry and unemployed? Sadly, those who dare to do something differently are either abused and attacked through insecurity or frustrated by government regulations and multiple taxations and complete absence of a support base for young people. How can we be productive while public leaders steal billions meant for creating functional systems through power provision, infrastructure such as roads, transport systems and health care? Unless unemployment is addressed, the jobless and the millions of out-of-school children will be a cannon fodder for terrorism, drug abuse, robbery, and all forms of criminality as we are already seeing in both rural and urban centres.

How can Nigerians create a prosperous, just and equitable society?
We must ensure we stop the worst of us from governing the best of us through forcing the establishment of a transparent, credible and citizens-driven leadership selection process that inspires competent men and women of character to venture in and provide credible leadership. We must produce value-driven leaders, who will focus on the good of the nation; who look at their positions as a call to serve with responsibility, respect, tolerance, social justice, and inclusivity. If the citizens are engaged in the way they are led, with rule of law and honesty, productivity will be easy and hard work will be rewarded and there will be consequences for bad behaviours. With that we will be prosperous in just a very short time.

Our institutions must not be places where we tell stories, but where we conduct real research through partnership, leveraging the strength of each other. Those with the mindset of entering governance must enter it with a mindset to do it differently. When many people are dependent on the decision that you will take, you cannot take it without them; inclusivity is key to social justice. You lose your right to complain when you allow fools to rule you. As such, the youth of Nigeria must wake up to save their future by electing leaders that can inspire and fire their dreams in technology, agriculture, innovation, healthcare, telecommunication, art, music and all to create a prosperous nation.

How do you see the coalition of opposition parties that have formally adopted the African Democratic Congress (ADC) as the platform to challenge President Bola Tinubu’s re-election bid in 2027?
There is nothing different! Who is new in the coalition? Who have we not seen his or her leadership style? Must you be angry only when you are out of power? Any leader of character can make a difference wherever you are provided the capacity is there. We don’t need an assembly of old political office holders; we need an assembly of men and women of values and character that is consistent and progressive with the mindset of nation building and provides a superior alternative. Who among the coalition people did you see aggressively pursuing electoral and judicial reforms? Even those who were victims of the fraudulent elections of 2023 are still sluggish and nonchalant in calling for urgent electoral and judicial reforms. Therefore, I call on Nigerian youths to take 2027 elections seriously and draw the lines between the current political class and their future. We must not allow our next generation to be introduced to this brand of mediocre politics. We must be persistent, deliberate, bold, and decisive to end them by 2027.

Do you think the coalition has the cohesion and ideology to challenge the APC?
No, I have not seen anything different from people looking for positions. But I will love a strong opposition that will end the shame and debased rule of APC in Nigeria. If APC continues after 2027, Nigeria will be a laughing stock even before small African nations we are supposed to be helping to grow. President Tinubu and his goons of mediocre leadership need to leave.

Do you think the political climate and public sentiment in Nigeria have shifted significantly against the ruling party?
In the first place, was the current President elected by majority votes of Nigerians? The answer is no. Is there any data, verifiable from every human development indicator, local and international, that rates this government positive? Again, the answer is no.

Insecurity is still expanding; we now have more ungoverned spaces in Nigeria than any other time. Hunger, unemployment, corruption, high cost of governance and inflation are rising. The middle class have been wiped out. What we have now are struggling Nigerians that are just existing rather than real living. As I said earlier, anyone rooting for APC and Tinubu in 2027 is either an appendage of power eating from the looting ongoing or a hireling eating crumbs from the table of his masters. Sadly, they are the loudest in their self-made prison holes. It is self-inflicted wickedness for someone who cannot go to his farm or access his village freely on federal roads, send his children peacefully to school, afford ordinary food and healthcare to be praising a government that debased them instead of promoting their quality of lives.

Do you think that the governor of your state is meeting the expectations of the people?
Far from it! While I know that it is near impossible for any government to meet the complete needs of any state, there is a minimum standard acceptable to call ‘performance.’ This means he may get one or two areas right and still be below my kind of rating. I still have a road to my local council under lock and key by terrorists with periodic openings when the military are ready to escort. We still have many ghost towns and ungoverned spaces. We still have dilapidated public infrastructure that should have been attended to.

Above all, when competent leaders are a threat to a group of people, then something is terribly wrong. Borno is operated by a one-man gang – Governor Zulum. He does only what he deems fit and no one questions him. There is no democracy in Borno; only men and women assembled to be answering “yes sir” to anything the governor proposes. There are no open governance initiatives, no accountability to the people. Projects are not deployed based on priority. There is no citizens’ engagement in his style of leadership. It is all about what he wants done. Equity and fairness is laid waste. The teaming youths have become praise singers and attack dogs. There are no innovative operations to create the atmosphere for young people to dream big. Industries are dead; agricultural potential is being wasted.

My advice to him is to revive all abandoned government invested companies for production to start, ensure comparative productivity of each local council and invest in what they can do. Let every local council be productive in something. He should look for credible men and women from the state that are disruptive and deliberate in changing the fortunes of the state to leverage the numerous advantages the state holds. He should value opposition and take good advice even from those who are not in his political fold, as no one has the monopoly of knowledge and love for the state. He should plan the new towns, love tree planting, work on a modern water supply scheme, solve the power problem, and seek more partnership on security.

The 2027 elections are fast approaching. Are you still going for any elective position and under which platform?
It is because of the absence of credible participation that we have allowed this mediocre politics to reduce us to this level.

God willing, with life and health, I will contest election again in 2027.

Politics is too important to be left for politicians – in the words of Charles De Gaul, former France President. I do not look at politics as a job. People who should lead us must have been doing something successfully in order to produce ethical, strategic, people-driven, and inclusive leadership.

As a student of politics, policy and governance, I will present myself for election in a most credible way to offer value-based and responsible public leadership for the good of the nation.

In 2023, my people voted for me and I won with a great margin, but the corrupt political class with the help of the security agencies disappeared with the results of two local councils and no collation and announcement was made. The court didn’t live up to its values either. These and more are the reasons I have been so loud on electoral and judicial reforms long before now.