Accord Party’s candidate for the Amuwo-Odofin Federal Constituency in the forthcoming general elections, Ifeanyi Francis Ugwu, has hinged Nigeria’s social, moral and economic progress to the election of courageous people that will be brave enough to confront the various hindering our progress as a nation.

Hon Ugwu, in a press statement, lamented the election of people whose understanding of the powers and potentials of the legislature are suspect, saying that without strong and vibrant legislative houses, the true values of participatory democracy would continue to elude the people.

The legislature, he said in the statement, “is the intellectual warehouse of the entire country, and should be populated by people of sound intellect, unimpeachable morals and unquestionable broadmindedness, who would embrace the job of thinking for the entire nation, fashioning policies without regard to who would benefit from them and designing the future long before it becomes the present.”

While he identified corruption and self-centered politicking as the bane of national unity and development, the banker-turned politician said only Nigerians can redeem the situation of the country by voting quality and competence against other parochial sentiments.

“Nigeria is a blessed country. We have enough human and natural resources to be one of the greatest nation’s on earth. But the challenge is that we have unwittingly to electing low quality leadership, leading to the worst of us leading the best of us. This must change if this country will move from its current developmental retardation to measurable progress and properity,” Ugwu stated.

He described as unfortunate the designation of the Nigerian National Assembly as retirement homes for failed former governors, warning that a continuation of the trend would continue to push the country away from growth.

“Legislators lack the courage and will power to speak out the truth during parliamentary debates, not because they do not want their voices to be heard, but mostly because they do not have a point-of-view to share. At other times, they would have soiled their hands conniving with the executive for one form of unethical commitment or the other, and this, if people with my kind of orientation and disposition are elected into the House of Representatives, Senate and even in the state Houses of Assembly, must stop,” the Accord Party candidate said.

He said he is in politics to impact the quality of debates that lead to good governance and invited Nigerians, especially those living in his Amuwo-Odofin constituency and interested in change, to lend him their support.

He advised Nigerians to shun ethnic and tribal sentiments in the electoral process, lamenting that decades of playing ethnic politics have not benefitted the ordinary Nigerian.

Said he: “During elections, our political elite would remember the poor and begin playing the cards of tribalism and even religion. But the truth is that there are only two classes of Nigerians: there are the rich and there are the poor. These are the only mutually exclusive social and economic classes we have and until we free ourselves from their political choke-hold, we will not be able to be truly free as a people.

On what he promises to change if elected, Ugwu said his focus will be improving the quality of parliamentary debates in such a way as to enhance the overall functions of the executive, adding that while he will be mindful of the constituency that elected him, he also is of the view that Nigeria has to be regarded as a unit, whose collective wellness has been hindered by bad leadership.

Update news