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By Wilfred Eya
A presidential aspirant on the platform of the All Progressives Congress(APC), Moses Chiahemba Ayom has urged the leadership of his party to heed the advice of president Muhammadu Buhari in the recent National convention not to sell the presidential ticket of the ruling party to the highest bidder.
Speaking after the March 26 APC convention, the 53-year-old businessman who is into real estate, hospitality, mining, construction, and interior systems spoke on various issues including the need to stop the level of injustice being meted to the Middle Belt region.
How do you feel about the recently concluded National convention of the APC?
We thank God it has come and gone. I appreciate the leadership quality of President Muhammadu Buhari who with his father-figure was able to harmonise the different political interests to achieve a very peaceful exercise. In politics, there is always the issue of conflict of interests but the important thing is the ability to resolve them and arrive at a set goal. Today, despite the tension before the convention, the APC has a new National Chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu who is experienced enough to be able to pilot the affairs of the party.
However, as a professional, I do things differently and my thoughts might not be that of a regular politician. This is because politicians as soon as they get to the office, the next thing on their mind is another election. They will win a particular election and begin to think of another election. Most times in Nigeria, they will be swearing in somebody and that very evening, people will come and whisper to him that we should start working for your second term today. So, the problem with many of our politicians is that most times they think only of winning elections. They do not think of doing what is in their manifesto. But I as a professional, I look at this thing from a different perspective. How am I looking at it? Nigeria’s problems as I keep on saying, are man-made and they are highly surmountable. We can easily get rid of them if the will is there. The whole of Nigeria’s problems is what can be tackled in half of a tenure. Look at the national convention of my party, the APC; look at the amount they put on the forms. To me, it is nothing but extortion; how do you tell somebody to buy a form for N20million to be a chairman of a party. Is he coming there to do business? Where is he getting that money from? Is politics now a kind of investment where you expect to recoup what you spend when you are elected into an office? How for instance is he going to recover the N20million? Is he bringing the N20 million as a condition to serve the people. Do you expect somebody to go and borrow money to pay because you want to serve the people? The reverse should be the case. When you are serving the people, you should be paid and not spending your hard-earned money because you want to serve the people. The amount they put for buying forms was too high. Why I am saying this is because in those years, headmasters, teachers in the local communities were the leaders. But these days, if you tell a lecturer even of any level to pay N20 million to become the chairman of a party, are you not by implication shutting out people who have knowledge out of the system? Do you have to be a bourgeois to contest elections? In Nigeria, banks do not lend money to any person but that is a discussion for another day. And banks in Nigeria would not lend you money to go and buy a form because they know that it is not an investment. It is a vague investment. So, where do you want them to go and get the investment or do you want businessmen to go and finance the chairman? Remember when a businessman is financing a project, he is looking at what he would get inside. So, that is a foundation for corruption. Now that the convention is over, I am thanking Mr President for going for the yearnings of a region that has been oppressed, marginalized and almost their lives snuffed out; their farm lands have been deserted. We have been crying that government should make sure that we are also part of this country. I am happy that President Buhari came back from his sick leave abroad and was able to call all the governors together and party leaders and said you know what, let us make sure that this Middle Belt that has been crying of marginalization are given the position of the chairman of the party. So we thank Mr president, the leaders and the party itself for that. However, I know that the president is a very high moral person. He is a man of integrity that the world knows. He is a man that does not just speak about equity, fairness and justice but shows it in his actions as a devout Muslim and child of God. Every time he talks about Nigeria, he insists on the need for equity, fairness and justice. Therefore, I am saying that now that this kind of person who is not a bigot is leading as our president, we are asking him to do the needful. He should use his influence as the president and make sure that the presidency is also zoned to the Middle Belt. This would be able to show the world that Nigeria has realized that they have cheated the Middle Belt since 1960 when Nigeria gained her independence. So, even after giving us a chairman of the party, and giving us a president tomorrow, it is not even enough. People are talking about the South West and former president Olusegun Obasanjo was there for eight years because his kinsman, MKO Abiola won the 1993 presidential election fairly but was cancelled by the then military government. As a matter of fact, legally, he did not win the election but Nigerians stood up and said you cannot do this kind of injustice to people. We made sure that Obasanjo from the same state with Abiola became the president for eight years as a compensation. The whole world knows. Another administration came and they brought somebody from the same state and gave him another eight years as the vice president. The good thing is that the President, Yemi Osinbajo is a professor of law who breathes, smokes, drinks and sleep on the concept of equity, fairness and justice. He is a pastor and leader of my community. That is why I told him on Arise TV that Prof Osinbajo that I know will never go for the presidency this time around. This is because where is the justice, fairness and equity for him to want to run for the presidency when his zone, the South West has done 16 years as president and vice president respectively when a whole region has never tasted it for one day?
On the presidency, we are yet to know how much they will sell the forms but I hope they must have listened to what I said not to raise the cost of it. At the APC convention, President Buhari also decided to back what I and most Nigerians have been saying that all these monies people are made to invest in politics are another way of extortion. The president was emphatic and told the party not to give the presidency to the highest bidder. Those who are thinking that they are going to give me president because I have money, the leader of the party has said that they are already disqualified. His advice is very key and I am hoping that the party leaders would heed to what I and the president have said not to give the party’s ticket to the highest bidder. Let the party make sure the form for the presidential ticket will be very affordable to allow a lecturer or a young man who have come from the United States with a sharp IT brain to participate in the process. He may be the man to turn around the economy of this country but he does not have $10,000 in his account. The APC should further go ahead and demonstrate it is not a party of extortion and the leader is already warning them.
With the convention over, what are your hopes for a Nigerian of Middle Belt extraction to emerge in 2023?
Now, I will not dwell on the issue of Middle Belt because already we know that if it is about equity, fairness and justice, they would still give it to us. But if they do not give it to us, there is no problem; God is still watching.
What do you identify as the major problems confronting Nigeria?
One of the main problems of Nigeria is insecurity –robbery, banditry, kidnapping and other crimes. Another one is the economy. This is what is holding the whole things together. You have to treat one before the other. You might think it is security but I would rather say it is the economy. It is because the resources available to the country are very limited so people are desperate. Nigeria, though has a lot of resources but they have not been maximally harnessed. Even those who are working, their salaries cannot sustain them because the prices of thinks keep changing everyday in the market. It is just that they do not have the mind to go on a highway and start kidnapping people. These problems cannot go away until the economy is fixed and I have what it takes to fix the economy. I have enough professional experience to fix the economy because Nigeria is a project. Ninety five per cent of people who want to go for the coming election are politicians but Nigeria is a project and only a professional can fix it. I am not just an international professional, I am an experienced one. I handle projects everyday. In April 12, 2016 to be precise, the president embarked on one of his biggest trips ever. He went to China with the richest African, Aliko Dangote and iconic agreements were signed. The Nigerian government signed an MOU of $6 billion. They called it currency swap. What that means is that you put less pressure on our foreign reserve by trading directly with China. Ninety per cent of products round the world come from China; so why can’t we as well do currency swap between Nigeria and China so it makes it easy for us to trade; that was the first agreement that was signed. The second agreement that was signed was $2.6 billion which was to build the biggest refinery and fertilizer plant in Epe, Lagos by Dangote. It was recently commissioned by President Buhari. The third agreement was signed by me. I signed a contract with SBN, the biggest manufacturers of mining equipment in the world. The contract I signed was to bring the SBN, those components to be assembling them. I also have one of the biggest quarries in Abuja here under the name granite and marble. It was on the basis of that that I went to China. I went to China with the president because of the pedigree that I have had. I understand China more than any Nigerian and that is where the world is going.
Recently, President Buhari was in Lagos to commission the second largest fertilizer blending plant in the world built by Dangote. I don’t know whether it is still the issue of marginalization. That contract of$2.6 million that Aliko Dangote signed, I signed mine with SBN on the same day. My company is also supposed to put that kind of plant in Abuja but it has not happened because of some hiccups. It is like we need a political solution to take the project to another level.
