Professor Shuaib Oba AbdulRaheem is the governorship candidate of New Nigeria Peoples Party, NNPP in Kwara State.

The former Vice-chancellor of the University of Ilorin, and Chairman, Federal Character Commission, was also one of the arrowheads of the “O to ge” political struggle that berth the current administration in Kwara before he dumped the All Progressives Congress, APC for the NNPP after an irreconcilable crisis. In this interview, he spoke on why he wants to govern Kwara and his chances among others.

What will be your main focus, if elected?

My interest in politics is not pecuniary, not for love of money. I want to bring comfort to a population abused over the years by an irresponsible government. My first focus will be the fight against corruption and good governance. If it can be checked, enough resources will go round for other sectors of the economy and administration. The total welfare of the people is my first responsibility.

What will you do to improve the standard of education in the state?

I have some knowledge in education and how it ought to be and I know the status of our education in Kwara State.

The last WAEC results placed Kwara state at the 37th position in terms of excellence. This is bad for a state regarded as educationally progressive and it is due to bad governance over the years. We will focus on revamping educational system so it can give functional education to our children.

How will you tackle the problem of hunger if elected?

Hunger and poverty are twin brothers and when combined produces insecurity. If we have had a government that was elected on the promise of dealing with insecurity, if after these years, they have not been able to do so, then there’s need for a round table conference by all leaders in Nigeria who have the love of the nation at heart.

Considering the so much talked about incumbency factor, what are your chances of winning the coming governorship election?

The incumbency factor is a product of the disposition of the people. You can sit in a position and refuse to leave but the people have the power to send you out. I don’t doubt the intelligence of the average Kwara voter, they know what they have been through over the past few years. So I am not afraid of incumbency. I’m only committed to the vision of the people on good governance.

What’s your opinion about the last weekend Presidential and National Assembly elections?

From my standpoint, it was naturally peaceful but not flawless.

What do you think can be done to improve on these flaws?

There’s a need for synergy between the parties and the electoral body. There seems to be a distance between them either artificial or man-made and it has made parties like my party, the NNPP disadvantaged either as a result of poor or insincere communication between the party and INEC.

For example, the instance of the logo of my party on the ballot paper is a controversial issue. The logo is fruit basket quite alright as on the paper but the colour separation is not there. It takes a lot of efforts to identify the logo and would pose a problem to averagely educated Nigerians. INEC deprived one of my party members from voting because there’s no name of the party on the paper. A lot of our members were disenfranchised because of this irresponsibility of INEC officers at the polling unit. This needs to be addressed against future occurrences because hundreds of thousands of people can’t continually be disenfranchised.

On this issue of omission of the NNPP name, what correction can be made before the election on March11?

I hope there’s sufficient pressure on INEC to do well. If the same problem persists and is repeated, people won’t take it kindly. INEC should be called to order. There are two modes Of identification of the party, the name or the logo. If the logo is misrepresented, you have removed the party from being reckoned.

What do you think you can do to educate your members on how to go about it during the election?

We are appealing to them to remain calm. We’ll plead our case to the authorities and we hope there’ll be corrections. INEC asked us to submit the names of our agents and polling units, tags. We did so but INEC returned to us blank laminated papers without pictures or names, and wrong polling units. This is a common experience in NNPP in most areas in Kwara State. These errors can be traced directly to INEC. If an agent is not identified you give room for corruption.