Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN) presidential aspirant, Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, has promised to tackle poverty, if elected president next year.While beginning his ‘Talking on the Issues (ToI)’ series yesterday, Olawepo-Hashim told newsmen that most of the nation’s problems, including insurgency, partly emanated from poverty.
ToI is a talkshop on his ideas to reposition and develop the country.According to him, the problem should be dealt with, “with the urgency of now”; it should not be an unending song.“Poverty is not just a physical, realistic thing; but also a state of the mind. It is about depravity, 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,” he added. Olawepo-Hashim argued that no amount of crime control system could stop the ills in a poverty-invested society.
His words: “Crime is one outcome of poverty, and I would rather deal with the 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”.
“Crime is caused partly by the poverty of ideas revolving around radicalisation, 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 is time we found solutions to it.
“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 our time has come.”He revealed that the ToI series would continue ahead of the ANN primaries and the general elections, as it was embarked upon to let the populace know the party’s readiness 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, exactly the way it is done in the more advanced democracies.