Senator for Kano Central, Ibrahim Shekarau says Nigerians should be worried that 83 million voters cannot successfully elect 11,000 good people to represent them.
Shekarau, who is a former two-term governor of Kano State, said that without electing the right persons into office, the much-desired change would remain elusive.
According to him, Nigerians should have a change of mindset going into the 2023 general election so that the right leaders can get into office.
“There is one challenge I refer people to; it is when they understand it that they will comprehend the reality.
“Presently, it is being said that we are up to 200 million. But do you know that all of the elected people in Nigeria— councillors, chairmen, state assembly members, governors, deputy governors, Senators, House of Reps members are only 11,000 in number?
“Now, there are 83 million voters in Nigeria and they are not able to produce 11,000 capable representatives.
“We are not talking about 200 million, but 83 million eligible voters. Yet you cannot vote 11,000 representatives that will make you comfortably go back home and sleep,” Shekarau said while addressing journalists in Kano on Sunday.
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He said that Nigerians must learn to hold other elected representatives to account rather than focus on just the President and the 36 state governors.
Shekarau noted that there were already 109 senators and 360 members of the House of Representatives tasked with the responsibility of checkmating the president
“Let me give you a very quick prescription. Each and every one of you here belong to a ward. Even if you are not from Kano you have your own village somewhere.
“What interest have you shown that you elected the right councillor in your own ward? What role did you play to make sure you vote the right chairman in your local government? What role did you play to make sure you get the right Assembly member?
“What role did you play to make sure you get the right governor, Senator, House of Reps member and President?
“Everybody is talking of only 37 people; we kill ourselves because of those 37 people— 36 governors and the President.
“If you take out 36 persons out of 11,000 what will remain? We have 469 National Assembly members to checkmate just one person, Mr. President.
“Don’t ask me how it will be done, but we are 469 and we have times when Presidents do as they wish.
“If 469 of us fall on the same page, even if the President is a devil, he will have no choices but to do as we wish. So the ball is in our court.
“So for you who wants a road or a school in your community, ask yourselves the role you have played in electing your representatives. The solution lies in all of us becoming politically conscious,” Ibrahim Shekarau added.