By Mike Aladenika.
As the clock ticks towards the party primaries of the various political parties ahead of the 2023 General elections, the need for a true, genuine and quality candidate to be presented to Nigerians for election has come to the front burner.
Nigerians domicile in the United States of America and Europe under the aegis of #Diaspora4Adesina Support Group of North America and Europe are saying, "this 2023 elections should not be approached like every other traditional elections done by carrier politicians devoid of the rudiments of good governance,productivity,development and conscious efforts to make Nigeria great again".
The convener, #Diaspora4Adesina Support Group of North America and Europe, Dr. Tony Bello in a statement issued, copies of which was made available to SPARKNEWSNAIJA said "Nigeria and Nigerians should come to terms with the fact that, at this point of our national history, we can no longer be decieved with the monotonous manifestos of political parties, rather, our quest for a brand new president should be on the basis of competence, intelligence quotient, capability, exposure, international connections" among other qualities .
According to Dr.Tony Bello "our Diaspora Support Group is reaffirming that Dr. Akinwumi Adesina is the Best Man to Succeed President Buhari. With Adesina as Nigeria's president, the nation will regain its status among the committee of nations."
"Adesina's legacy of achievements in Nigeria, Africa and globally stands him shoulders higher than his other contemporaries. He has been able to use his offices at every point to proffer solutions to pressing issues affecting Africa and the world".
Even as politicking ahead of elections thickens in Nigeria, the world stood still to "watched with great admiration and interest the energy, intensity, and passion with which this Nigerian President of AfDB goes about delivering on the mandate of the African apex bank before the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations. He was questioned by ranking members on global food security and asked to proffer solutions to the looming food crisis facing Africa, Afghanistan, etc.
"As usual, Adesina backed up his presentation of the situational analysis, proffered implementable and responsible solutions and recommendations for evidence-based policy interventions by the U.S. government."
"At the end, the Committee promised to recommend $5 billion intervention, of which $200 million or more is likely to go to AfDB programs and activities on Africa food and nutrition security activities.
Dr. Tony Bello quotes Dr. Adesina as saying that, “Today, I would like to focus on feeding Africa and what the African Development Bank is doing to address the global food crisis. Truth is, with America’s financing, the African Development Bank Group’s action to boost harvests from Africa’s farms are achieving impressive results.
“For example, through our Technologies for African Agriculture Transformation (TAAT) program, our support reached 11 million farmers in 28 countries in little over two years,” and noting, “Africa has an estimated 33 million smallholder farmers.”
Adesina further said that “the program is delivering climate-smart seeds, fertilizers and technical support allowing farmers to harvest higher yields of wheat, corn, rice, and other staples.
“African food production has increased by more than 12 million metric tons.
“The economic shocks from the Russian war in Ukraine are causing all of us to pay more to put food on the table.
“The magnitude of food price increases and trade disruptions caused by the Russian-Ukraine conflict have hit Africa harder than other developing regions of the world, threatening to topple the continent’s food systems already stressed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The Russia-Ukraine conflict is a huge factor in fertilizer prices hiking upwards of 300%.
“Our analysis is that Africa faces a fertilizer shortage of 2 million metric tons this year.
“We estimate it will cost about $2 billion dollars – at current market prices – to source new fertilizer to cover the gap.
“If we don’t mitigate this shortage rapidly, food production will decline by at least 20%. This horrific ‘perfect storm’ will see Africa lose more than $11 billion in the value of food production, according to our analysis.
“Without urgent and immediate global action, we may witness social and political unrest, as we have seen only too often in the past.
“The truth is, that the African Development Bank, with your support, is prepared to meet this new challenge and others head on.
“Let me share what we are doing to help avert a looming food crisis. We have developed an Africa Emergency Food Production Plan.
“Our $1.5 billion plan will be used to support African countries to produce food rapidly - produce 38 million metric tons of food in fact. The total value of the additional food production is $12 billion.
“The Africa Emergency Food Production Plan will deliver climate resilient agricultural technologies to 20 million farmers. The $1.5 billion plan intends to source $1.3 billion of our own resources.
“With U.S. support to reduce the $200 million financing gap – we can ensure the Africa Emergency Food Production Plan’s success.
“The strong support of the US for our Africa Emergency Food Production Plan will allow Africa to avert a looming food crisis and use the opportunity to drive structural changes in agriculture, to unleash the full potential of Africa to become a breadbasket to the world.”
In the same way, Adesina's goodwill message, this same week at the Conference of Speakers and African Heads of State in Abuja, was hearth warming when he said “this conference of speakers must be directed towards tackling the challenges facing our continent. Talking about the challenges it’s not enough, there must be solutions.”
He noted, “The COVID-19 pandemic affected the growth of Africa as well as the rest of the world. Africa’s confirmed COVID-19 cases stand at 11.5 million people with 253,000 deaths. Africa’s economic growth were in decline by minus 1.5 percent, over 26 million people fell further into poverty, while 30 million jobs were lost.”
Adesina once again advocated for food import substitution. He said, “Africa should be decoupled from food import dependency. Africa must feed itself and do so with pride.”
Adesina advocated for inclusion to create jobs and recover lost jobs, focus on MSMEs; the recovery must focus on youths and tackle debts of Africa, requiring close partnerships between the legislative and executive arms of government. We may add the judiciary for good governance and accountability.
Adesina spoke from Ghana to the U.S. Senate Committee where he’s preparing for the AfDB Annual General Meeting to be held May 23-27, 2022.
Dr Tony Bello said testimonial of Adesina's good works abound everywhere "Early this week, we saw Adesina in Durham, North Carolina where he was conferred with an honorary doctorate degree of humane letters by Duke University.
"About a week or two ago, Adesina’s good news meeting with President Buhari made headlines in Nigeria. In the words of the media aide to President Buhari, Femi Adesina, "Adesina Strikes again!
Dr Tony Bello who is also the Chairman, Shine Bridge Global Inc., Chesapeake, Virginia-USA, said "We are confident that Adesina’s presidency in Nigeria come 2023 will usher in private sector investments, local and foreign direct investment inflows, human capital development and recovery of the Nigerians in Diaspora ‘gray matter infrastructure’ from across the world. This is a term coined by Dr. Adesina when speaking about malnutrition!
"Adesina knows what to do to fix the food and nutrition security and the national security challenges of Nigeria. He knows food production, food processing, and consumer packaged foods.
'He understands industrial development to create economic boom. He knows how to invest in merit-based human capital development and inclusion. He’s a technocrat par excellence. He understands that food security and national security goes hand-in-hand! In fact, in our view, national security is food security and verse-versal!
"We therefore wish to express our sincere thanks and gratitude to our co-patriots, technocrats and detribalized Nigerians who are working hard as volunteers and admirers of Dr. Adesina, first to purchase, and then complete the expression of interest and nomination forms on behalf of Dr. Adesina.
"We herein call upon all patriotic Nigerians at home and abroad to join hands with the APC leadership and delegates to vote Adesina as the party’s presidential flag bearer, even in absentia as may be needed for such a time as this.
Dr. Tony Bello was emphatic in saying "We need Adesina to be voted consensus candidate of the APC party as he continues to deliver on the bank’s mandate through the primaries.
It’s time for all Nigerians to give a career technocrat in the person of Dr. Adesina the opportunity to be elected President of Nigeria come 2023.
#SPARKNEWSNAIJA (SNN).
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