CEME Senior Fellow Kingsley Moghalu Announces Candidacy for President of Nigeria
by Kingsley Moghalu, CEME Senior Fellow
Declaration of Intention to Contest the 2019 Presidential Election
originally posted on Medium
With love for our country and a fierce commitment to a vision of rapid progress for our more than 180 million citizens, and following wide-ranging consultations, I offer myself to serve you as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as from May 29, 2019. I therefore intend to be a candidate in the 2019 presidential election. I seek the opportunity to offer our country visionary, purposeful, competent leadership to build our future.
Nearly 60 years ago, our Founding Fathers Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Sir Ahmadu Bello and Chief Obafemi Awolowo envisioned a great country that would take its pride of place in the world based on the talents of its citizens and a constitutional federation that would ensure justice, equity, and economic productivity.
Their vision and hopes have yet to materialize — military rule, oil booms and busts, and the successive leadership failures of our civilian political class have combined to rob us of what seemed our destiny at independence.
I am standing here today saying that it is time we shatter the downward spiral to nowhere.
I am here today, standing with the 110 missing girls of Dapchi and their grieving family, and with the traumatized young women of Chibok, those with us and those still in captivity.
I am here today standing with 180 million Nigerians, in addition to thousands of businesses struggling to share a measly 4000MW of electricity.
I am here today standing with the 100 million Nigerians experiencing crushing poverty, living on less than 300 naira a day.
I am here today because 33 million of our able men and women are unemployed or underemployed, nearly 15 million children are out of school, and only 60% of Nigerians are literate.
I am here today because our hospitals are understaffed and mismanaged death traps, and women are still subject to horrific prejudices and devastating early marriages.
I am taking this stand, here and now, because Nigeria today is divided by ethnic and religious conflicts, made worse by corruption. The government has failed in its very first duty of securing our lives as citizens, and we have lost our place in the world. The time has come for us to fix this.