With Less than 20 days to the 2023 general elections, Lawyer and APC Member, Seun Falaye says it is the majority of Nigerians, the common man out there that would decide the next president of this country and not faceless people.
Speaking on TVCBreakfast, Mr Falaye said the All Progressives Party and its Presidential Candidate Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu is focused on delivering the message of hope, the message of economic renascence to Nigerians because they are the ones to make the choice.
He said the feedback the party is receiving is that the message of Hope is resonating with them.
“We are on course as we speak, based on our internal polling, to cross the threshold in at least 30 states of the federation, which means that the messages that Asiwaju is propagating to the people is getting home.
” If you’re going to conduct a detailed and truthful pool, you go into the communities, rural areas, you deploy the necessary cultural tools that is useful for them to speak and tell you their own thinking about the election. And that’s what we’ve done internally”.
Mr Falaye stated that for any serious politician or public sector analyst, they must know what the desires of the people are, and the key issues that they want you to address which is done by pulling and sampling.
“Sampling is done effectively and efficiently and in a very transparent and credible manner. But what we see that is being bandied around are obviously poor data that are induced to skew people’s position”.
He continued by saying that it is crucial for Nigerians to understand that Asiwaju is the only candidate who has been actively mobilizing and fighting for the common man in order to redirect the government’s attention and emphasis to resolving the fuel and Naira crises.
According to him, Asiwaju has always been at the side of the common man. “For a candidate that is seeking the election of the vote of Nigerians not to come out and speak to that, it shows that they don’t care about the people”.
He noted that political candidates who are saying Nigerians should bear the inconveniences of the naira and fuel crisis are far removed from the reality.
Mr Falaye added that Nigerians right now can’t go to the market and shop.
“Almost 50% of contributors to Nigerian Economic Activities and GDP are small business owners. These small business owners not only articulating any public policies.
“Nobody ever told Nigerians that if they paid their 1 million, 10,000 naira in, they wouldn’t get it back when the CBN said they should execute a currency swap, which is what this was meant to be. Bring your old note and collect fresh notes, they urged. But, as far as we can tell, you’ve given your notes and received nothing in return. It’s perilous. People are in pain, they are hungry, and they are angry.
“The other articulation of the CBN that this is going to help the electoral process and make it more transparent and bring integrity, Whether we like it or not, cash is still an element, an integral element of the electoral process.
“The Nigerian police would deploy its staff on election day, the INEC would employ Ad-hoc staff to transport materials from point A to point B, and even the party would deploy its agents because the agents are a crucial part of the electoral process and the integrity of the process. All of them would be paid money and in cash.
Mr Falaye said we need to be careful when we borrow ideas from different climes and bring it to Nigeria.
He said Nigeria’s electronic payments system and E-payments or whatever that we’re trying to encourage as laudable as it is, as prevalent as it is in the urban centers of Kano and Lagos, it is still very miniscule.
Mr. Falaye used the UK as an example, noting that the nation has an 85% electronic payment penetration rate and is still proposing legislation that will entrench, that will ensure the people have access to cash, Why then do we have an economy that is mostly based on cash and lacks the kind of cash penetration that the UK currently has?
He added that electronic payment and other channels are supposed to be an alternative or an addition.
