Presidential Aspirant, Mr. Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim has promised to address the persistent problem of poverty in the country, if elected president in the 2019 presidential elections.
Olawepo-Hashim who spoke to newsmen while beginning a series on “Talking on the Issues (ToI)”, a sequence of his ideas on how to reposition and develop the country, said most of the nation’s problems including the one on insurgency partly emanated from poverty. The problem should be dealt with, “with the urgency of now; it should not be an unending song”
“Poverty” he began “is not just a physical, realistic thing, but also a state of the mind. It is about depravation, deprivation and visible lack of resources to feed the body and the mind. The state of lack brews anger and revulsion for the environment where the victim resides, and causes alienation from modernity. It can also lead to violence, depending”
He argued that no amount of crime control system could stop the outcome of a poverty-invested society. “Crime is one outcome of poverty, and I would rather deal with the root cause of a problem than concentrating on the symptom. All hands will be on deck from February 2019, when I am elected president by the grace of God and the voting power of fellow Nigerians”
The Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN) aspirant regretted that years after the Boko Haram insurgency began in Nigeria, the nation is yet to find a lasting solution to the crisis. “It was caused partly by the poverty of ideas revolving around radicalization, indoctrination and a situation where an individual cannot reason from the other side.
“That level of poverty is worsened by the inability to afford basic meals. We have been in this kind of quagmire for ages, and it was time we found solutions to it. The ANN is a new party, bubbling with ideas and vision, with young, vibrant politicians in the mix. We are ready to be the solution. We are, in fact, the solution, and there is no gainsaying the fact that our time has come”
He revealed that Talking on the Issues (ToI) series would be continuous ahead of the ANN primaries and the presidential elections proper, adding that it is being embarked upon to let the populace know how ready we are to take them out of the woods.
“Ours is a party of ideas. I am also a man of ideas. We are ready to take on the issues. We encourage others to follow this part, so we can elevate the level of electioneering process in the land, and exactly the way it is being done in the more advanced democracies”
