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Former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and candidate of the Young Progressive Party (YPP) in the 2019 presidential elections, Prof. Kingsley Moghalu, has canvassed electoral reforms that will enable Nigerians abroad to vote from their countries of abode.
Moghalu, who made the assertion while declaring his intent to run for the 2023 presidential election, condemned rising insecurity and poor state of the Nigerian economy.
He, therefore, urged the National Assembly to urgently make necessary laws on electoral reforms that would enhance the country’s democratic experience. In his letter of interest sighted by The Guardian, he said all votes should count and be counted in a transparent manner, insisting that the Electoral Act Amendment should make provision for Nigerians in the Diaspora to register and vote in all elections in Nigeria from their countries of residence.
He stressed that only the emergence of visionary, competent and inclusive national leadership, as well as restructuring of the country based on a new people’s constitution could end Nigeria’s disorderly and violent degeneration into a failed state.
He said: “We live daily in the shadow of terrorists. Our economy is collapsing. Many families cannot afford food. Millions of young men and women have no jobs and have no hope. Our university students know more about Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strikes and long school closures than any skills they need to be competitive in the 21st century world. “I lost my father, Isaac Moghalu in December 1998, because he had a stroke, but the doctors were on strike, and we could not get him adequate healthcare on time. Soon after we moved him to a private clinic where passed on shortly afterwards. I was heartbroken. Today, 23 years later, not much has changed in the country,” he lamented.
Continuing, he said: “For the sake of the Nigerian youths—including my four children—whose future is being drowned in reckless foreign borrowing and for the sake of all Nigerians suffering and seeking an alternative to the status quo, I intend, to present myself again as presidential candidate for in the 2023 elections.”
He pledged that if elected president he would run a government with a team of highly competent Nigerians from across the country, along with strengthened, independent institutions to deliver a four-point agenda in four years. In what he tagged SWAG agenda, Moghalu stressed that he would ensure security of Nigerians and Nigeria’s territory, create jobs for the youths and run an innovative economy, ensure accelerated education, healthcare reform and good governance, exemplified by inclusiveness, transparency, effectiveness and accountability.
