President Muhammadu Buhari has called on politicians at all levels, to engage on issue-based and peaceful campaigns, to avoid setting the county ablaze.
The president said this yesterday at the State House in Abuja, during the launch of his campaign manual/Next Level document ahead of the 2019 presidential campaigns.
In accordance with the 2019 election timetable of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), political parties were on Sunday given the go ahead to kick-start their campaigns.
Speaking at the launch of his campaign manual, President Buhari, who is the flag bearer of the All Progressives Congress (APC), urged all candidates to go about their campaigns in a peaceful manner.
“I am not unmindful that the National Assembly and the presidential campaign starts today, I will implore candidates to go about the campaigns peacefully and decently. We have no other country, let us not set it ablaze because of politics,” he said, stressing that his biggest ambition is to overhaul the education sector in the next couple of years.
“Every child counts-and simply, whatever it takes to prepare our teachers, curriculum and classrooms to attain the right educational goals that grow our country, will be done.
“We will remodel 10,000 schools every year and retain our teachers to impart science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics using coding, animation, robotics to re-interpreter our curriculum,” Buhari added.
While the president claimed that the APC-led administration has delivered on its three campaign promises of fighting corruption, insecurity and revamping the economy.
On the fight against corruption, the president said government was doing everything humanly possible to address the issue headlong.
“Corruption is an existential threat to Nigeria. Despite the gains we have made in closing the gates, we know that there is still much ground to cover to stop the systemic corruption. We are committed to deepening the work we started this first term such that the nation’s assets and resources continue to be organised and utilised to do good for the common man.
“The next four years will be quite significant for our country. Nigeria is faced with a choice to keep building a new Nigeria-making a break from its tainted past which favoured an opportunistic few. Our choices will shape us-our economic security and our future prosperity. Nigeria, more than ever before, needs a stable and people-focused government to move the agenda for our country forward,” he said.
Security
On security, the president said the 17 local governments in North-east have been delivered from Boko Haram insurgency.
He said while the road had been difficult in the last three and half years, the federal government laid the foundation for a prosperous society.
In his remarks, Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Mr. Boss Mustapha said the social investment programmes of the present administration, especially the trader-moni, are the worst nightmare of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
He said through careful implementation, the trader-moni has impacted more lives than the immediate past administration.
The SGF said he was skeptical when he learnt of the emergence of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar as the presidential candidate of the PDP, but that his fears have been doused with unfolding developments within the polity.
He said contrary to insinuations that the president had performed below expectations, over 200 policy programmes were implemented by the administration, and impacted positively on the lives of Nigerians directly and indirectly.
Also speaking, Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, said 365 road projects were currently ongoing in all parts of the federation.
He said 244 of the projects were initiated as far back as 2001, but abandoned by the previous administrations.
In a similar remark, , Minister of Transportation and Director General of the Buhari Campaign Organisation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, said the Lagos-Ibadan rail tracks was 80 percent completed while the Itakpe-Warri rail lines would soon begin operations.
He said the federal government expended about N40 million subsidising passenger fares for Abuja-Kaduna standard rail, which has transported over a million passengers since it started operations.
Amaechi said the present administration was completing projects initiated by the Goodluck Jonathan administration, stressing that it was economically savvy to complete existing ones than initiating fresh projects.
Atiku’s 3m job promise
Also, the PDP presidential candidate, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, has promised to create three million jobs annually and transform Nigeria into a modern economy that works for its people.
The former VP announced this in a 63-page policy document that will be launched today (Monday) to kick-start his presidential campaign.
He said his mission for Nigeria include; unravelling the Nigeria Paradox, Stitching Nigeria’s Structural Fault Lines, and Reinforcing Nigeria’s Unity.
Atiku, who lamented that despite the nation’s vast resources, it had failed to deliver standards that the Nigerian people expected or demanded.
He attributed what he called the nation’s under-performance, largely to the many economic and political structural fault lines, limiting its ability to sustained growth, create jobs and achieve real poverty reduction.
The PDP standard bearer believes that in reinforcing Nigeria’s unity, the country needs a unity that is transparently and collectively negotiated and agreed upon, stressing that there was need for Nigeria to restructure its polity.
Describing the current rate of the economy as slow and uninspiring, he claimed that foreign investment was in decline, while the economy remains uncompetitive and undiversified.
The document stated that, the economy even after exiting the 2017 recession, the economic growth declined from 2.11% in Q4 of 2017 to 1.95% in Q1 and 1.5% in Q2 of 2018, adding that growth rates is below targets in the Economic Recovery Growth Plan (ERGP) and also below population growth rate.
The PDP candidate said the oil and gas sector accounts for less than 10 per cent of the GDP, representing 95% of export earnings and up to 60% of government revenue, but regretted that the economy remains largely undiversified.
The former Vice President also lamented that the “manufacturing sector is weak and sluggish, and only accounts for less than 10% of the GDP.”
The PDP flag bearer further promised to get “Nigeria working again by tackling the hydra-headed problems through; human capital development, promoting economic diversification, reducing infrastructure deficit, reforming public institutions and building competitive and economic system.”
He also pledged a “reform of public institutions to make them stronger and more supportive and facilitating, enhanced private sector access to credit will be prioritised. Regulatory institutions will be strengthened and their independence will be shielded from political interference.
“Deepen monetary and fiscal reforms to promote a stable macro-economic environment. Monetary and fiscal policies shall ensure low inflation rate, stable exchange rate and interest rates that will be supportive of business quest for credit.”
Atiku also espoused his plans to use Public Private Partnership (PPP) to deliver infrastructure in critical sector of the economy.
This, according to the policy document include, “accelerate investment to double our infrastructure stock to approximately 50% of GDP by 2025 and 70% by 2030. Power sector reform will be a critical policy priority. By 2025, Nigeria shall make giant strides in diversifying its sources of power and delivering up to 20,000MW.”
It hinted further that by 2025, Atiku would increase the inflow of direct foreign investment to a minimum of 2.5% of the country’s GDP, while also working towards achieving the lowest income tax rate in Africa.
On agriculture, Atiku’s policy document stated that in the agricultural sector, there would be collaboration between federal and state governments in the design and implementation of robust and sustainable land reforms.
This, it said include, strengthening the markets for agricultural commodities, orderly privatisation of the Nigerian commodities exchange, as well as improving agricultural sector access to financial services through NIRSAL.
With close to 16 million people unemployed, Atiku revealed his plan to stimulate growth of the nation’s economy with a view to enhancing its capacity to provide opportunities for the economically active population to participate in the economy through wage or self-employment.
“Our vision is to transform Nigeria into a modern economy that works for his people and capable of taking its rightful place among the top 20 economies in the world. My economic policy will be job-centred especially for our teeming youth,” he added.
Atiku also planned to “reduce gradually the rate of unemployment and under-employment to a single digit by 2024. Target the creation of up to 3 million self and wage-paying employment opportunities in the private sector annually.”
To achieve this, Atiku further disclosed that he has laid out plans to re-launch the National Open Apprenticeship Programme (NOAP), with special focus on young men and women who may not have the opportunity to attend school or complete basic education, saying, “the plan is to create 1 million Apprentices annually in the informal sector.
