By Celestine Okafor (Editor-in-Chief)
Ahead of his formal declaration to vie for the office of President of Nigeria in the 2023 general elections and also for the Presidential primary next year, opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leading contender, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, on Thursday, paid a consultation visit to two former military presidents, Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Abdulsalami Abubakar, at their hilltop residences in Minna, Niger State capital.
Senator Anyim who is so determined in his presidential bid has also been widely consulting and interfacing with other relevant leaders and stakeholders across the country in a bid to actualize his dream.
NIGERIAN NEWSLEADER Newspaper Online gathered that Anyim and his entourage, made up of respected personalities and strategists, arrived in Minna early on Thursday to confer with IBB and Abdulsalami, to intimate them of his ambition and to also seek their support.
Senator Pius Anyim with General Abdulsalami Abubakar
The former Senate President and ex-Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Pius Anyim, explained his mission to Minna thus on his official Facebook page.
“Today, I was received in a private audience by two of our nation’s esteemed leaders and patriots. I met with former President Ibrahim Babangida and former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar.
“I am further emboldened in the conviction that I can make significant contributions in our collective quest to consolidate democracy, build a stronger and more united Nigeria. I feel very enriched and invigorated. Long live Nigeria.”
Anyim's one-day visit to Minna was a clear indication that he meant business and therefore 'must set forth at dawn' in his cross-country stakeholders consultations and also in his preparations which this medium learned, has reached a feverish pitch. Anyim, is, therefore, gradually and strategically positioning himself for the Presidential battle ahead.
At the last PDP National Convention in Abuja, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, made a widely commendable bold move when he hinted that he would be throwing his hat in the 2023 Presidential ring as a contestant for the nation's top job. Aside from coming from the southeast geo-political zone of Nigeria where the 2023 presidency is generally expected to be zoned to by the political parties, Anyim believes, very strongly, that he has what it takes to serve the nation as president. Above all, he is of the view that only the best candidate with the right formula to rescue Nigeria, should challenge him.
Anyim whose campaign posters sometime ago flooded the public and cyberspace, was however quick to dismiss it as the sole idea of his political supporters and well-wishers who believed he has the capacity for the job. He carefully dissociated himself from the posters, only to bid his time for when he would make up his mind to run. He did so at that convention and he is vigorously following up on his convention day declaration.
"Posters of my presidential bid and agitations by groups for me to contest flooded the social media in 2020 and I disassociated myself from such calls. I felt that it was too early for such declarations to enable the present administration to concentrate on governance. Such calls resurfaced in the early part of 2021 and I chose to be quiet over the issue. We presently have less than 18 months to the next elections and I feel the time was ripe to indicate my interest", Senator Anyim explained.
The young Nigerian statesman, who, according to a dependable source in Minna who was privy to what transpired during Anyim's consultation trip to Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Abdulsalami Abubakar, said the former Senate President and his elite entourage were well received by the former leaders. They were said to have expressed satisfaction with Anyim's courage and aspiration especially at a time younger aspirants like him particularly from the southeast were undecided or still silent on whether or not, they should declare their intentions for the job.
Babangida and Abubakar were said to have encouraged Anyim to pursue his aspirations and stay the course with his conviction, as only a younger crop of leaders like him could make a difference in the future and destiny of Nigeria in the coming years.
The positions of the former leaders were born out of their belief that the new leadership selection process in 2023 and beyond should put a premium on youth potential, competence, knowledge of the Nigerian problem, and sensitivity to her unity and geopolitical, ethnic, and sundry diversity and the need to unite all and heal the existing national wound.
As a matter of urgent necessity, General Babangida in an interview he granted ARISE NEWS TV's Ngozi Alegbu in Minna as part of his 80th birthday celebration on August 17, 2021, was of the view that a president of Nigerian in 2023 who does not understand the economics of managing a complex economy as Nigeria's, indeed has no business at the country's seat of power from 2023. It is yet to be clear if General Babangida had the likes of his visitor, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, in mind when he made those propositions four months ago.
“If you get a good leadership that links with the people and tries to talk with the people; not talking on top of the people, then we would be okay. I have started visualizing a good Nigerian leader. That is, a person, who travels across the country and has a friend virtually everywhere he travels to and he knows at least one person that he can communicate with.
“That is a person, who is very versed in economics and is also a good politician, who should be able to talk to Nigerians and so on. I have seen one, or two or three of such persons already in his sixties", Babangida stated
On why he is seeking to be President of Nigeria in 2023, Senator Anyim told a Lagos-based Online newspaper, TheNiche, one week ago in an interview that among other reasons, he is an acceptable choice of a greater proportion of the Nigerian electorates across the six geo-political zones of Nigeria. Anyim equally told the news medium that his claims would soon be confirmed at the end of his nationwide stakeholder's consultations.
“I decided to contest the 2023 presidential election not because I am from the Southeast but because, first, I am a Nigerian politician who has been in government and who understands what the problems are and so can find solutions to them. I am also that Nigerian Politician that is at home in every part of the country – North, East, West, and South.
"I aspire to be president of Nigeria because I believe that by my experience, what I know about Nigeria, my very deep knowledge of the country, I will be able to run an inclusive government that will build consensus, restore peace, refocus Nigeria and makes the country a place that all of us will be proud of.
"I have been in government and I have been around for some good number of years. I have followed the political processes in the country and I have played active roles and I believe that most Nigerians know me very well.
“So, I believe that the challenges of today are actually a matter of leadership and I will provide that leadership. I will give every segment of this country comfort. I will provide a leadership that will understand how to wield our diversities into an asset.
"I think that management of our diversities is actually central to the success of the country and I have interacted with various segments of the country. I have participated in running the government that affected every part of the country and I know the needs of our diverse groups and I know how to put it together and do a policy thrust that will build a Nigeria of our dream.”
Senator Anyim Pius Anyim is definitely by age factor, one of the gold hope for the nation's leadership as espoused by both the young generation and the old brigades of Nigeria. Anyim who will still be merely 61 years at the time he will be heading for the presidential primary of his party in 2022 or in early February 2023, was born in Ishiagu, at the Southern Senatorial district of Ebonyi State, southeast Nigeria.
He was elected twice into the Senate, first in 1996/1997 on the platform of the defunct United Nigeria Congress Party (UNCP) of the botched Abacha's third republic. Afterward, in 1999, he was again elected into the Senate on the platform of the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In less than two years, he was chosen as Nigeria's Senate President at age 39 to succeed late Senator Chuba Okadigbo.
Anyim's selfless quest for true democracy and politics of All-Inclusiveness, equal opportunity for all to contest any elective political office, soon pitched him against the presidency at the time which was accused of spearheading a futuristic tenure elongation project. And to prove that he practicing what he was preaching, Senator Anyim resisted the sweet allure of power by refusing to re-contest for the Senate in 2003, after his first tenure as Nigeria's number three citizen and President of the Senate. NNL.
