Professor Kingsley Moghalu is a man with an enviable resume. He is a former deputy governor at the Central Bank of Nigeria. Moghalu is a political economist, a lawyer, author and professor in international business and public policy. He was also former United Nations official. Professor Moghalu founded the Sogato Strategies LLC and the Institute for Governance and Economic Transformation. He is also a senior adviser of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions.
As deputy governor of Financial System Stability and Director of the Central Bank of Nigeria between years 2009 to 2014, Moghalu fronted the implementations of reforms that saved the collapsing banking sector in Nigeria. He joined the International Islamic Liquidity Management Corporation and is a director of the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria.
Moghalu has authored several books on various subjects and has been a top seller on Amazon. He penned “Emerging Africa: How the Global Economy’s Last Frontier Can Prosper and Matter” (2014), “Global Justice: the Politics of War Crimes Trials” (2006) and Rwanda’s Genocide: The Politics of Global Justice”
If Moghalu emerges as the President of Nigeria, that will make him the most educated and most professionally qualified president in Nigeria’s history. Moghalu lived his early life in Switzerland and Washington DC where his father, a Nigerian Foreign Service Officer was posted to serve. He earned his degree in law from the University of Nigeria in 1986.
In 1992, Moghalu bagged his master’s degree at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He obtained his PhD in international relations at London School of Economics and Political Science. He earned numerous certificates and fellowships in the field of public administration and corporate governance.
As a United Nations Officer (1992-2008), Moghalu has served in many capacities including in policy formulation in advisory panels and community services all over the world.
Moghalu joined the presidential race in February 2018 and even though he is 57-years-old, he chose to run under the Young Progressive Party.
In an online poll conducted by Vanguard on twitter on who among the three featured candidates impressed the respondents most from the presidential debate, Kingsley Moghalu had the highest number of votes. He had 58 per cent of respondents, Fela Durotoye of the Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN) 25 per cent and Dr Obiageli Ezekwesili of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPC) 17 percent. Dr. Ezekwesili has dropped from the presidential race and her aggrieved party has disowned her and endorsed Buhari. Durotoye has declared that he is ready to sacrifice his ambitions of the presidency in order to form a coalition against the Incumbent Mohammadu Buhari (APC) and Atiku Abubarka (PDP).
STRENGTHS
Experienced with Nigeria’s Economy …
Moghalu is quite conversant with the Nigerian economic actualities. He has served with the Central Bank of Nigeria as a one of its technocrats and has been in the forefront of formulating polices that guided the economy. In his book, Emerging Africa: How the Global Economy’s ‘last Frontier’ Can Prosper and Matter, Moghalu makes an excellent display of abundant knowledge of the Africa economic systems with a good blend of brilliance to get it growing. A Google review of the book acknowledged his brilliance “Ultimately he demonstrates how Africa’s progress in the twenty-first century will require nothing short of the reinvention of the African mind-set. Africans seriously analysing Africa’s opportunities are all too rare.”
The review didn’t ignore his confident grasp of the concepts behind the Nigerian economy “Kingsley Moghalu writes with insight and authority. Emerging Africa deserves a wide audience.”
For his insightful concepts outlined in this book, Moghalu was appointed as Professor of Practice in International Business and Economic Policy at the prestigious Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, one of America’s premier universities.
Working as an insider policy maker with the CBN must have afforded him the opportunity to understand the failing components of the economy and he is now running for presidency to fix them.
Economic Competence …
As a Financial System Stability and Director at CBN, Moghalu was deeply involved in saving the failing banking system through the introduction of brilliant polices after the global financial crisis of 2008. In an interview with the Punch newspaper December last year, Moghalu boasted “I am the most prepared candidate to be President of Nigeria after the 2019 elections.” Justifying this statement, he said “That’s because of the unique combination of my vision for our country and the character, competence and capacity I have to turn that vision into reality for millions of our countrymen and women. My experience and track record cover nation-building, economic management, international relations and diplomacy. These are the three main challenges that will face Nigeria’s President in 2019.”
Moghalu continues, “Our reforms were nationally and globally acclaimed. I led the introduction of the Bank Verification Number, which has greatly improved the banking and payments system.”
Nigerians, at least those on twitter seem to agree that Moghalu is prepared to be President. He has been preferred by a large number of twitter users who responded to the twitter poll conducted by Vanguard Newspaper through their twitter account.
Diplomatic competence …
Nigeria is in serious need of solutions to her diplomatic and security challenges with the cases of the full blow Boko Haram terrorism, Fulani herdsmen killings and human right abuses. Kingsley Moghalu has worked with the UN for decades and has garnered experiences on global best practices for handling security and diplomatic challenges. In his own words; “As a United Nations official for 17 years, during which I rose through the ranks from entry level to the highest career rank, I helped restore broken nations in the 1990s such as Cambodia, Rwanda after the genocide, and Croatia after the wars of the former Yugoslavia”.
From this experience he authored the book, “Rwanda’s Genocide: The Politics of Global Justice”. Of this book was the review penned: “[Moghalu] takes us behind the scenes to the political and strategic factors that shaped a path-breaking war crimes tribunal and demonstrates why the trials at Arusha, like Nuremberg, Tokyo, and the Hague, are more than just prosecutions of culprits, but also politics by other means. This is the first serious book on the politics of justice for Rwanda’s genocide. Moghalu tells this gripping story with the authority of an insider, elegant and engaging writing, and intellectual mastery of the subject matter”.
Kingsley Moghalu is certainly an experienced and global voice is nation building, national security development and diplomacy.
Realistic Campaign Promises …
Unlike most of the other candidates, Moghalu has been very realistic with his campaign promises. He has said that the damage done to the national structures cannot be undone in a short time. He promises to focus on a carrying out an economic restructuring of the nation.
“We must create a new economy that restructures Nigeria on the basis of six geo-political zones. Any restructuring of Nigeria means that we must return to resource control where the regions control their resources and pay some tax to the Federal Government. I propose 40% at most or maybe 30%” he said in an interview.
Moghalu also believes in a restructured Nigeria. In his words: “My views on restructuring are clear. Nigeria should be restructured on the basis of the six geopolitical zones and not on the basis of 36 states. A regional structure will create sustainable growth, development and transformation because each region has economies of scale but many states, on their own, don’t. There should be resource control, with regions paying a tax on their revenues to the central government. I recommend 40 per cent or maybe 30 per cent but not less. Local governments should not be a constitutional tier of government but they can be created and managed by regional governments.”
The third force …
In a recent development, after presidential aspirant Oby Ezekwesili stepped down, Kingsley Moghalu and the presidential candidate of the Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN), Fela Durotoye, have formed a coalition to “rescue the nation” called the force. Even though the Coalition is still weak compared to the mega parties, the success of this alliance is still an initial step to seeing the two form a third force to wrestle power from the two mega parties –PDP and APC. The coalition coming at a time like this is quite late, therefore, more campaign should be now to reflect the new stand and draw more voters to their side.
WEAKNESSES
The coalition is weak …
The forces of the APC and the PDP are so powerful and netted into the society that the Moghalu/Durotoye coalition is yet to be fit to compete favourably against any of the two. The Moghalu campaign, before the coalition has not done so well, probably because of the lack of adequate funding. More work must go into the campaign now before the elections come on 16th February.
PDP experience …
As a CBN Technocrat under the PDP government, Moghalu helped impose devastating policies, together with CBN Governor, Charles Soludo on the banking system. The corrupt PDP regime used these policies to enable offenders elope with loots from the banks. Some of those controversial programmes include the NEEDS, PPP, SEEDs, deregulation, Naira devaluation and others.
With his experiences being rooted in a corrupt system, there are chances that the culture of the corrupt may not be completely absent in Moghalu’s makeup.
A writer said “Moghalu played prominent roles in the failed PDP Economic Teams and is still very loyal to anti-people ideas”
Indeed former CBN Governor Sanusi Lamido had accused the Jonathan administration of corruption in the CBN. Sanusi was victimized and Kingsley Moghalu took sides with Jonathan.
In an interview with interpo, Moghalu spoke of Sanusi: “The governor [Sanusi] began to make very damaging public allegations against the government… allegations that have not been proven, after the president had sent him a presidential query about the finances of the central bank. The government has given a reason for the suspension and that was… to enable an investigation into the allegations against him.”
He continued to defend the theft allegations “Somebody in the Central Bank was taking on an activist political role. That is not our function. Central banks over the world have clear functions and in your country [Britain] and any other civilised country I know that central bank governors operate within certain expectations and constraints and respect those expectations and constraints.”
Kingsley Moghalu seems to remain loyal to his former boss, Goodluck Jonathan whose administration has been accused of corruption.
Vice President …
His running mate is Umma Getso, a political activist and business entrepreneur. In the debate for vice presidential candidates that saw mega party’s vice presidential candidates like APC’s Yemi Osinbajo and PDP’s Peter Obi had her behind the podium too. Her performance was descried by many Nigerians on social media as below expectation. Once asked a question, she said her party hadn’t been in power before now and therefore cannot know the problems Nigeria faces.
OPPORTUNITY
Coalition …
The coalition is an opportunity to harvest all the votes of the third force into one candidate. To make this opportunity more rewarding, the coalition must be made to grow to include other presidential candidates like the AAC presdidential Candidate, Omoyele Sowore and every other like-minded candidate.
Debate …
Moghalu’s performance at the debate organised by the BON and the NEDG gave Nigerians a better feel of him and his competence. He must now build on the momentum developed already and increase his public speaking engagements
Restructuring …
Many ethnics groups have called out for restructuring of the nation. Jonathan held a very costly Sovereign National Conference from which reports for the retracting of the nation to reflect a true federal system. Buhari promised to implement the reports but has failed to do so. Moghlau is strongly in agreement with the restructuring of the nation.
He says also, “When I become president in May, within 18 months, we would have completed the constitutional restructuring by the National Assembly and the State Assemblies.
“We, as the executive, we go to them with an executive bill of how we think the country should look and we’ll discuss it and the legislature will go to work.
“We will go directly to the Nigerian people and open up a debate on restructuring so that we can know what people want and reflect that in whatever the legislature does,”
This must be presented to the Nigerian people who are pro-restructuring during campaign.
Buhari’s Failure …
The failure of the Buhari’s government has been colossal and painful for Nigerians. This is an opportunity for the likes of Moghalu by proving that he can do better. Now that the Coalition has begun to grow, the campaign team must prove their capability before Nigerians.
THREATS
An election in danger of misconduct …
For the 2019 general elections, many a fear has arisen that the elections may not be free and fair. This is because of the actions of the Buhari government in recent times. It was ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo that began to accuse Buhari of attempting to rig the elections. Buhari had blocked the electoral reform bill. He appointed his relative as the Head of Coalition at INEC amidst many agitations from different quarters. Recently, he suspended the Chief Judge of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onneghen and appointed Ibrahim Tanko in his place a day before Onneghen was to constitute the election tribunal saying the. With all these, it seems the elections may not be credible and could lead to conflict in the country.
Mega Parties …
The two mega parties in this election –APC and PDP are two big threats to Moghalu. They both possess the highest number of supporter base all over the nation both south and the North.
These parties are more funded, more powerful, larger and more influential.
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