Former Military President, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, has suggested that the next president of Nigeria, come 2023 should be in his 60s because of the nature of the work of the country’s leader. He also called for the unity of the nation, stating that Nigeria can only grow together and not disunity.
Babangida, who spoke during an exclusive interview with Arise Television on Friday, explained that one of the reasons Nigeria has refused to progress and achieve the dreams of the founding fathers was because Nigerians no longer believed in the future of their own country.
Although Babangida did not mention any names as ineligible for the nation’s number one seat, he however suggested that individuals in their 60s should be the focus of Nigerians as potential presidential candidates in 2023.
He said, “The nation is endowed with both human and natural resources but few individuals have the capacity to become the President and could effectively run the country.”
The former leader, who accused Nigerians of creating, and at the same time, destroying their own country, identified bad leadership as yet a major reason for the socio-economic challenges facing the country.
Talking about the presidential hopefuls he had in mind, IBB said they were persons in their 60s with contacts across the nation and who had been traversing the geo-political zones, marketing their acceptability and capacity.
“If you get a good leadership that links with the people and tries to talk with the people; not talking on top of the people, then we would be okay.
“I have started visualising a good Nigerian leader. That is, a person, who travels across the country and has a friend virtually everywhere he travels to and he knows at least one person that he can communicate with.
“That is a person, who is very versed in economics and is also a good politician, who should be able to talk to Nigerians and so on. I have seen one, or two or three of such persons already in his sixties.
“Nigerians are very resilient, they are very resourceful so leaders should see how to use this to achieve a common objective,” Babangida said.