Ditch the dinosaurs | 10 takeaways from Moghalu’s speech at the Platform 2018

Platform

Kingsley Moghalu, an aspirant in the 2019 presidential race, was one of the main speakers at The Platform held this Workers Day.

Mr Moghalu, a former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and professor of political economy, announced his intentions for the presidency earlier in the year and has made appearances on television, radio and at institutions around the country, his visit to the University of Nigeria Nsukka the most recent.

His speech at the event was a mix of a rallying cry to Nigerians to move away from the current political establishment, with some direct punches. Here are ten takeaways:

  1. SUFFERING AND SMILING IS OUR IDEOLOGY

No line captures the Nigerian way of life better than that immortalised for all time in Fela’s lyrics. Mr Moghalu knows this and recognises it as a consequence of a backlog of disappointments.

“You see, we are very good at ‘managing’ as Nigerians” he said. “We have become extremely good at it… We have believed and believed so many times — and we have been disappointed”

A culture of low expectations, accordingly, has fostered the feeling “that we don’t deserve nice things, that the things we truly want are not possible. We have tried too many times and failed too many times that we believe the problem is trying too hard. Let’s just manage the one we have”

Moghalu’s expression here would seem to be in line with the observation that Nigeria runs on the principle of “anyhowness”, aided by the fact that Nigerians are already too used to managing mediocrity that there is no virtue in pursuing excellence.

  1. THE RECURRENT Vs CAPITAL IMBALANCE IS A SERUOUS PROBLEM

Debates about budgets in Nigeria have always highlighted the staggering lopsidedness of overheads and recurrents in comparison to capital budgets. But why should anybody complain when the recurrent/overhead actually serves to put food on tables and enable parents pay fees?

Moghalu sarcastically adds to the list of curious defences made: “Let’s pretend that 60 percent of our federal revenue doesn’t go to maintaining just 1 million people. After all, they haven’t killed anybody”.

Reading him in reverse, we can assume him pointing to there being a life-and-death implication of just a fraction of the population having a lot of everybody’s money all to themselves.

  1. MOGHALU CAN THROW PUNCHES

As a former economics technocrat, international civil servant and sound academic, many expect Mr Moghalu’s politics to be a clean bill without digs or mud slings. While that should largely be the case, he demonstrated some ability to throw punches to potential opponents.

He attacks the incumbent’s medical history: “They insult our youth, calling them lazy, even though they spend more time in the hospital than at their duty post”

But the incumbent can go to the US, unlike a certain former VP: “They insult our intelligence, claiming they will fight corruption, when they cannot even get visas to visit the United States because of their past crimes”.

  1. HIS CAMPAIGN’s MOTIVATION

“How do you convince people to believe the only one thing that has ever been true in the history of humanity — that there is no force more powerful than a people who have decided that enough is truly enough?”

  1. HE IS QUITE OPTIMISTIC

Not many people have placed Mr Moghalu atop a list of potential winners, but he is not dazed.

“Nothing, absolutely nothing, is stopping us from getting the exact kind of leadership we want. Nothing. We are ready, we are able, we are clear”

We can expect that every contender believes they are the right person and so, will project thr level of confidence necessary to endear voters. Despite his present unpopularity compared to others, it should not surprise to see his stock rise over the coming months.

  1. IS HE AIMING AT 2023 THOUGH?

Moghalu said, in his speech, that his movement needs “just 10 million people who believe… Just 10 million, from across the country who understand this. Just 10 million who are ready and willing to take the risk, to open up their hearts, to put in the work. We need just 10 million people to make a difference. Today”

President Muhammadu Buhari won the 2015 polls with 15 million. What then will 10 million achieve? Enough ground work for another push in 2023?

  1. THE EMBARRASSING QUESTIONS WE FACE

“Are we not ashamed of what we manage? Are we not ashamed of the leaders that we have? Are you billionaires not tired of a country you have to explain and defend when you meet your counterparts at the World Economic Forum? Are you young leaders not fed up with the embarrassment of your country when you explain what’s going to your correspondents on Twitter, your fellows at global conferences, your audiences at global fora?”

Good question, even if the majority of Nigerians are neither billionaires who frequent Davos, nor on Twitter. Mr Moghalu may want to pay more attention to phone-in programmes on radio to find out what the majority of Nigerians are actually having to respond to.

  1. THE ANSWERS ARE NOT IN ABUJA OR OTA

But whatever the questions, the aspirant’s major point of the afternoon may have been summarily dismissing the notion that Nigerians must, as in the past, depend on only answers from certain places. “Those who will tell you there are only two choices. To ignore those who will tell you that our electoral fate has always been decided in Abuja, Minna, Ikoyi, Dubai or Ota”

  1. DITCH THE DINOSAURS

Mr Moghalu left his audience with two rallying cries, first referring to the old guard as “dinosaurs” whose interests in Nigeria are not to foster democracy.

“It is time to deliver Nigeria from dinosaucracy — a politics of dinosaurs, for dinosaurs, by dinosaurs… Our choice as a people is stark today as it ever has been: we have a choice between dinosaurs and deliverance. If we continue to be led by these dinosaurs and the people they endorse, the sunlight of our hopes for Nigeria will continue to be blotted out by dark clouds of incompetence, corruption, economic illiteracy and primitive tribalism”

  1. SHAKE THE TABLE!

And perhaps with a flash of his mind to that table at Fatima Dangote’s wedding, it was inevitable that he would say “it is time to shake the table of Nigeria’s current political class”

 

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