The British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Catriona Laing, has said that for the coming 2023 presidential elections, Nigeria should have younger presidential candidates and female vice presidential candidates.
She stressed that for the current situation of the country, this will be the ideal decision in order to make up for certain deficiencies.
Laing stated this during her visit to Rivers State, as she was hosted by Governor Nyesom Wike and Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi.
She said:
“It doesn’t have to be a perfect election. There would be problems, but we want it to be better than the last one. We want it to be secure, peaceful, the process should be run well, and you need to get people to register.
“My ideal candidates would be two younger presidential candidates, both with female vice presidential candidates.”
The British Commissioner also expressed her sympathy for the country.
“I do have some sympathy for Nigeria because if we as UK have one of these problems your country is having today, we will be struggling. Here, you deal with everything, from insurgency to kidnapping, to piracy off the Gulf of Guinea and you don’t have such a large army and police force for a country of this size.”
She made her submissions on how we could create a more effective system in the security workforce.
“The only way you turn this thing around is that government has to build the trust of its people, to have the people working with the government to deal with criminality. That’s how successful anti-criminal operations work.
“People willingly report those committing crime, working with police to identify criminals, same with the military on the insurgency situation. It’s only when the community is on the side of the police and security services that they can turn around the situation.”
Source: Sahara Reporters
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