AHEAD of 2015 general election, Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, yesterday said the level of insecurity in the country was a threat to free and fair elections.
The governor, who spoke during a courtesy visit by the students from the Royal College of Defence Studies, United Kingdom, UK led by Rear Admiral Jonas Haggren, at the State House, Alausa Ikeja, said; “Insecurity is a threat every time. It is not only to electoral process, even to human existence and business activities.
“I hope we will be done with this in a short time; in a way that it will not impede the ability and desire of Nigerians to
make a choice at the next election.
“Every election brings up the contest of idea and opportunity to make the choice either to keep the incumbent government or to elect another party to govern the country. And I don’t think that it will be different in Nigeria next year.”
He, however, debunked the claim that the All Progressives Congress, APC had concluded plans on the party’s flag bearer for the 2015 presidential election, saying; “I believe everyone who has aspiration will be given fair chance to express and ventilate that aspiration.
“There is nothing unusual in the emergency of the presidential candidate for APC. It will be an open activity and high level of accountability.
“I believe everyone who has
spiration will be given fair chance to express and ventilate that aspiration. Nothing unusual will happen. There will not be anything behind the closet.”
Meanwhile, Fashola said the recurrent cases of pipeline vandalism across the country would end if the Federal Government could intensify its investment in education especially in the provision of technical and vocational skills across the country.
He said that the most important resource any nation could have were its people because oil and gas as a resource today was only a seasonal resource, saying “It is important to pay attention to the strategic resource that provides the sizeable portion of our income and revenue to date.
We should pay attention to the people in the way they utilise the resources and that will be the bases for real diversification, educate and strengthen the citizens in terms of healthcare and life expectancy, ; providing skills for them through education.
It is only those skills that can form the bases and the totality of the understanding that the resources itself is not an end
Source vanguard
