The presidential aspirant on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) spoke at an interactive session with the media in Lagos on Sunday.
He said his decision to join the race was to change narrative of the nation’s politics.
Hayatu-deen, who is confident of picking the PDP ticket, acknowledged that he might be a ‘rookie’ among the aspirants, many of who are career politicians, he quickly pointed out that he could draw inspiration from many, who had come from outside the political environment to win elections and provide purposeful leadership.
Still speaking on insecurity, the one-time Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the now defunct FSB International Bank said it was almost 12 years that “this insurgency started and yet, not much has been done to stem it once and for all.”
He attributed the development partly to population explosion with little or no social and economic safety nets to cater for the surging young populace.
Hayatu-deen argued that none of these guys carrying AK-47 or improvised explosive devices has anything else to do.
His words: “The burning issue at the moment is insecurity. It is almost 12 years that this thing started. First and foremost, what we see might not be what it appears to be. What a carnage, loss of human lives and cruelty? We have to understand the underlying issues. I personally think that we have grown exponentially in the last 10 years. And global statistics show that we are the highest growing population. ”
Nothing wrong in human capital asset as long as your national output can take care of this growth.”
The ex-banker said there were different forms of insecurity that needed to be taken care of.
He explained: “One of economic security. When you have economic security, it means you have a happy population that can engage and become productive. We also have to do what I call gender security. Our women must be protected. They are doing a lot of things, as well as our girls. Girls must return to school and that glass ceiling must be broken so there are equal rights for women.”
The presidential hopeful said there must also be social security. He stated: “Nigeria is land of vices like ritual killings, fraud, drugs and corruption,” lamenting that he had never seen the kind of graft the nation was witnessing in his entire life.
He observed that there must also be energy security. “We have to be able to secure those things we have in homes and offices, and we need power to do this. The other component is fuel, gas and diesel. We have huge deposits of oil and gas reserves, but with no functional refineries. How can we be buying diesel at N700 per litre? The fourth is climate security. The world is changing rapidly. America, Canada, Japan, UAE and so on. Things are changing. We have to secure our future.”
On his chances going by the fact that he is not a career politician, Hayatu-deen noted: “In 1920, Warren Hardy was a publisher and with people saying the guy was not politician, this guy came and claimed the American presidency in same 1920. There was another oil magnate, who was not given a chance, but also became the president. The others were the two Bushes, the senior and junior, were not politicians. In fact, they were better than Trump who had never run for any office before winning the Presidency of the United States too. The most recent example is Emmanuel Macron of France. He came from nowhere as an investment banker. And there is also the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Selensky, who was a comedian. Career politicians are recycling themselves and running the country into the ground. My aim is to change the character and complexion of our politics. Is it difficult? It is, but it is doable, and we are encouraged by the strength of our conviction that we can do it and pick the ticket of the PDP. I can tell you that this election is for us to lose.”
