2019: WHY NIGERIANS SHOULD LOOK UP TO LAMIDO

                             
After so much slogan of change, the APC Government is yet to capture the feelings of the people and impact on their well being, let alone fill up the void of providing good leadership with sound economic policies and programs.

That perhaps explain why the only question on the lips of every well meaning Nigerian, is who can bail out the country in 2019?

For those who knew how Sule Lamido runs Jigawa State when he was Governor between 2007 and 2015 would sleep with their two eyes closed, since the nation’s multifaceted problems would not have been a source of worries to them, with Sule Lamido as the captain in the nation’s ship. In fact, hopes for a greater future would remain alive and Nigerians will live a highly comfortable life.

The persistent dwindling economy, infrastructural deficit, and harsh condition of living for the common man would give way for economic stability, steady growth and development as well as improved living condition of the people.

Leadership is a key factor to any nation’s development. And what Nigeria is apparently lacking is a visionary leadership that can restore the nation’s glory at National and International levels. With this as a critical issue, the current situation has suggested the need for the citizenry to reflect and look up to a leadership that can bail the country out of the woods.

The worrisome fact in the country, is how most Nigerians go to bed with empty stomach, as a result of poor wage, unemployment or severe inflation.  The economic condition of the country is so appalling while the government is still uneventful as a result of its inability to come up with viable economic policies and programs that can turn around the situation and improve the economy at micro and macro levels.

For over two years now, APC Government is wobbling in the wrong direction, wasting precious time, and sending wrong signals of worst things that await the country in coming years. Nigerians must therefore rise up to the challenge and bail themselves and the nation out of the Dark Age.

The options now available to the citizenry, is to elect people with principles and clear vision for development. Leaders that can launch sound economic policies and programs through demonstration and understanding of democratic tenets.

In his eight year rule of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido has succesffully demonstrated extraordinary qualities of leadership. He always looked at the local challenges via a global perspective and relieved the vast experience he garnered while he was a global player as Minister of Foreign Affairs to address the state’s challenges and restored people’s hope in the future through good governance.

When Lamido assumed the mantle of leadership, Jigawa state’s economy was almost on a brink of collapse, with absent of quality leadership. All indices of underdevelopment were manifest and its people are losing direction of where to go. But through his visionary policies and good governance, Lamido was able to turn around the situation with sound economic, health, educational and social policies that impacted tremendously on the lives of the people.

A state that was without hope or a future to look up to and was regarded as rural while remaining backward among its peers, suddenly became a cornerstone and a place to be, as a result of  visionary leadership. That’s how Lamido’s courage, vision and character set the tone of Jigawa’s steady growth, amidst multifaceted socio-political and economic challenges.
His bond with the people then was to ensure the restoration of the state’s lost glory, and he did just that through good governance, political accountability and honest management of the state’s scarce resources.
As he has built a healthy and dynamic culture in Jigawa state’s administration and succeeded as a fine reformer and a great administrator, whose experience makes him one of the leading and shining politicians in the country, so also he can replicate the same for the country.

His wide experience, charisma, strong influence, and principles have qualified him as one of few great leaders who appreciates people as human beings with their uniqueness and peculiar needs.
Lamido’s wit and consistency in politics has further presented him as a capable leader the country is looking for. While most of the key political figures in the country that hoped to become the party’s standard flag bearers had been changing political parties like they changed their dresses, Lamido is perhaps the only notable personality that remained consistent in PDP since its inception to date. More so, he has convinced all that, progress is quite possible, no matter the challenges, a fact he demonstrated through his record of performance that stands out for him while he was Jigawa State Governor.

As the nation look up to 2019 for another election, and that Sule Lamido has availed himself for the task ahead, the PDP as a party and Nigerians as citizens must rise to the challenge by ensuring his emergence as the party’s flag bearer and eventual emergence as the country’s number one citizen in a bid to move the nation forward.

What Nigeria needed most is the emergence of a smart, prepared and a serious politician, like Sule Lamido who has the vision, political principle and charisma to bail out the country and improve the quality of life of the people who have been left out and left behind as a result of bad leadership.
So far, all the key performance indicators in the country are pointing down, and the fear is that APC Government that rode to the top on the popular “Change Slogan” may finish the term without meeting any of the peoples’ expectations through realistic and participatory framework for the people.

But, if the mantle of leadership will go to Sule Lamido, he can do what he did to Jigawa State, even in an extraordinary way at national level. As governor, he has won the peoples’ interpretation of what governance is all about and wins their confidence as well.

Nigeria has abundant resources; human, economic and natural. Hence in an atmosphere of efficient reform, sound economic policies and good governance, the country would have been a great place for all. That’s why, while APC led-Government has veers off the mark by showing no clear sign of road map for the nation’s development, a Lamido Presidency will obviously restore peoples’ confidence in government and set the path for the country’s development.

Like he did at charting a road map that set out to achieve the “Jigawa dream”, so also he will do to the Nigerian nation by setting a “Nigerian Dream” that will make the country, a new haven, cheaper to govern, with its people ready to accommodate one another.