APC Shouldn’t Play The Biggest Scam On Nigerians Now It’s In Power

APC would’ve played the biggest scam on Nigerians if it doesn’t deliver its promises prior to the 2015 Nigerian presidential election.

And that would sadly make all those who supported APC look like fools.

No one loves being a fool—especially Nigerians.

But that would be the bitter reality of things.

I believe you’re thinking I’m a PDP supporter—hell no.

I don’t support APC, PDP or any other political party because I actually don’t trust the Nigerian political system…

I feel Nigerian leaders don’t care about the average Nigerian.

I can’t stand being fooled or used…

…or vouching/voting for someone who wouldn’t live up to my expectations.

After all, that’s typical in the Nigeria political sphere.

 

However, I’d always congratulate any good deed from any political party or leader when I see one.

Nigerians are tired of being played again

Most Nigerians supported APC in the presidential pools because they were fed-up of the PDP lead government.

Some of those who didn’t support APC did so because they weren’t sure whether APC was making empty promises.

They preferred to stick to the adage, “the devil you know is better than the angel you don’t know.”

Now that APC is in power, they shouldn’t play Nigerians because Nigerians are tired of being played.

 

• Nigerians are hungry for an actual change…
• Nigerians are tired of being used and dumped in the mud.
• Nigerians are tired of the deception that is predominant in the Nigeria political sphere.
• Nigerians are tired of the underdevelopment in the nation.
• Nigerians are tired of the hardship, insecurity, poverty, corruptions, high fuel prices, weak economy,   etc., that plagues the nation.

In fact, every sane Nigerian strongly desires a new Nigeria.

If the APC-lead government can provide that, Nigerians wouldn’t care if they stay in power for decades.

It’s simple—humans love what works for them, and have a tendency to stick to that…

APC was the strongest opposition to PDP prior to the 2015 Nigeria elections

I’ve been opportuned to witness a few elections in Nigeria…

As usual:

• You hear the surprising accusation from various political parties.
• You see lots of propagandas against various political candidates….
• You hear outrageous /surprising promises from various political parties.
• You see the see the violence perpetuated by supporters of various political parties…
• You see the huge amount of money spent by various political parties, and you wonder how they’d recoup all that cash.
• You see the various illegal acts perpetuated by various potential or incumbent leaders just to win votes.
• You see those that vote based on what is good for Nigeria…

…and those that vote based on ignorance, stupidity, bigotry or their bellies.

 

The 2015 elections had an extra trait that wasn’t present in previous elections I’ve witnessed:

PDP, which has been ruling the country since its return to democracy in 1999 had an opposition that could actually defeat it—APC.

The heat caused by the opposition party (APC) was so hot that I feared there’d be serious violence if APC didn’t win in the Nigeria presidential polls, because it had an enormous amount of ardent supporters.

As God who wants peace in this country would have it, Muhammadu Buhari, the presidential candidate of APC won…

…and Jonathan who doesn’t seem power drunk, willingly conceded to defeat for peace to reign in Nigeria.

 

 

APC promised “change” and a majority of Nigerians bought that

For 16 years PDP has ruled this country and I’m sorry to say—Nigeria hasn’t improved so much.

During PDP’s 16 years of occupying the presidential seat of the country:

• Corruption seemed to have increased, although not backed by statistics…

For example: Nigeria policemen no longer collect bribes of 20 Naira (AKA green) on the roads as they used to collect before…

…it’s now anything above 100 Naira (sometimes even thousands).

Even church goers pay bribes today…

However, it’s surprising considering Nigeria’s rank improved from 143rd to the 136th position on Transparency International‘s Corruption Perceptions Index.

• Nigeria still imports refined fuel…As Nigeria increased oil production, one would have expected the price of fuel to decrease.However, that is not the case—as of today, it has increased over the past 10 years. And this was under the PDP-led government.This is partly due to the fact that a majority of the oil mined in the country is exported for refining in other countries. After the oil is refined, it is then sent back to Nigeria. Of course, extra costs are incurred during the process.

• Unemployment has increased.
• Security is at its worst
  We now have things like Boko Haram posing serious threat to the security of this nation.

I could go on and on…

 

With APCs influence and its strong cry for change, a majority of Nigerians were inclined to support them.

…even some that didn’t really believe APC would deliver on its promise of “change”.

 

Now it’s left to APC to fulfil its promises

At least, as per what it published on its roadmap to a new Nigeria document on apc.com.ng

If you can’t find the original document on the link above, here’s a copy.

Here’s a summary of what APC promised to achieve if its candidate is elected the president of Nigeria:

Create Jobs

◾ Create 20,000 jobs per state immediately for those with a

minimum qualification of secondary school leaving certificate

and who participate in technology and vocational training.

◾ Encourage State Governments to focus on employment creation

by matching every one job created by the State Government

through funding with two jobs created by the Federal

Government in the same state.

◾ Direct conditional monthly cash transfers of NGN5,000 to the 25

million poorest and most vulnerable citizens upon demonstration

of children’s enrolment in school and immunization, to help

promote job empowerment

◾ Establish Technology/Industrial Estates fully equipped with ICT, power and other support

across the country to attract and encourage small-scale technology businesses and

other entrepreneurs.

◾ Provide allowances to discharged but unemployed Youth Corps members for 12 months

while they seek jobs or acquire training and skills for job placement or entrepreneurship.

◾ Establish plants for the assembly and ultimately the manufacture of phones, tablets,

computers and other devices.

◾ Pay a guaranteed indexed-linked price to farmers to ensure that there is always a ready

market for their produce, which will create more jobs, agricultural related employment

and sustain existing jobs.

◾ Provide One Meal A Day for all primary school students that will create jobs in agriculture,

including poultry, catering and delivery services.

◾ Create a scheme that provides matching funds for businesses that have already been

validated and secured funding elsewhere, including by borrowing, if such business will

create a minimum number of skilled jobs.

Support training centers created for skills acquisition or vocational training by providing

infrastructure for such institutions and matching grants where necessary, and organize job

fair and recruitment exercises at such institutions.

◾ Embark on vocational retraining and skills acquisition for unemployed graduates, school

leavers and drop-outs emphasizing technology and construction such as plumbers,

electricians and tilers, which will feed the public works and social housing schemes

among others.

◾ Invest in large-scale public works projects, beginning in the first quarter of the administration,

including a modern national railway system and interstate roads, to energize our economy

and create new businesses and jobs throughout Nigeria.

◾ Implement a social housing policy of one million low-cost housing units in the first four years,

which will create housing and increase skilled and unskilled employment.

◾ Promote technology transfer, including investing in new and less expensive technologies

(as in the building of affordable homes) to create more jobs.

◾ Make Nigeria a global hub for Internet and telecommunications services, including

outsourcing and cloud computing, to create millions of new jobs.

◾ Dramatically increase the number of small and medium-sized enterprises that produce new

jobs, with industrial hubs focused on their creation and growth in all regions of the country.

◾ Increase investments in research and development, particularly in the areas

of science and technology, to create jobs in high-demand fields.

◾ Improve the entrepreneurial, vocational and technical skills of youth in areas

such as technology, agriculture, manufacturing and other important fields, to

prepare them for the jobs of the future.

◾ Ensure women receive fair treatment in employment, education and housing,

and encourage affirmative action for women based on merit.

 

Fight Corruption

◾ Show zero tolerance for official and/or private sector corruption.

◾ Place the burden of proving innocence in corruption cases on persons with

inexplicable wealth.

◾ Pursue legislation expanding forfeiture and seizure of assets laws and procedure

with respect to inexplicable wealth, regardless of whether there is a conviction

for criminal conduct or not.

◾ Strengthen legal provisions to prevent stay of proceedings and other delays in

corruption trials.

◾ Guarantee the independence of anti-corruption and financial crimes agencies by

legislation, charging their budgets directly to the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

◾ Stop corruption in our elections, in part by making the Independent National and State

Electoral Commissions (INEC) truly independent and free from political interference.

◾ Improve the ability of citizens to keep an eye on their government, with more open

access to government data, greater disclosure of government contracts prior to

awards and during implementation, and ensuring the people’s business is done in an

open and transparent way.

 

Free Relevant Quality Education

Make the right of every Nigerian child to receive a free, relevant and quality

education a reality, based on free and comprehensive primary and secondary

education.

◾ Provide free tertiary education to students pursuing Science and Technology,

Engineering and Math (STEM).

◾ Provide free tertiary education to education majors and stipends prior to their

employment as teachers.

◾ Create incentives and dedicate special attention to the education of girls.

◾ Ensure every child attending primary school is properly nourished and ready to

learn by providing a Free Meal a Day.

◾ Invest in better equipping and staffing Teacher Training Colleges and provide

financial and progression incentives to attract and retain good teachers.

◾ Revamp and restructure education curricula from primary to tertiary levels with a

view to ensuring students acquire the right skills for employment, entrepreneurship

and innovation.

◾ Prepare young adults for the jobs of the future by expanding the focus on science

and technology at our colleges and universities.

◾ Improve the ability of people to gain employment in a variety of fields through

greater access to technical and vocational training.

Restore Nigerian Agriculture

Provide a government-guaranteed market for agricultural produce at

world index-linked prices.

◾ Revive agriculture as an engine for economic growth and new jobs,

including the expansion of agricultural processing and manufacturing.

◾ Aid subsistence farmers in increasing food production and creating jobs

by modernizing and commercializing farm production, and increase the

availability of loans and capital investments for small and medium-scale

cash crops.

◾ Make more land available and prepared for farming, and encourage

young people to enter into farming through incentives such as incubator

hubs and price guarantees.

◾ Make sure farmers have access to the resources they need, such as

seeds and fertilizer, by enhancing agricultural extension services and

food inspectorate divisions.

◾ Ensure Nigeria’s food supply is affordable, reduces food-borne illnesses

and improves nutrition through a nationwide food inspectorate division.

 

Housing Plan

◾ Achieve the construction of one million low-cost houses within

four years for the poor.

◾ Minimize income as a barrier for people to live in a safe and

affordable home, by increasing access to financing and

promoting a working national residential mortgage market as

a matter of urgency, so that Nigerians of varying income levels

can access affordable mortgages at single-digit interest rates

based on federal guarantees to the mortgage lenders.

Healthcare Plan for Children and Adults

◾ Provide free quality comprehensive health care based on a national health

insurance scheme.

◾ Stop all travel abroad at government expense for the purpose of medical treatment.

◾ Encourage medical professionals to establish practices and work in rural and

medically underserved areas, by providing incentives including tuition and other

training reimbursement for such professionals.

◾ Provide incentives for Nigerian doctors and health practitioners working abroad to

return home, to strengthen the health care industry in Nigeria and provide quality

care to those who need it.

◾ Double the number of practicing physicians and health care professionals in Nigeria

and increase the quality of federal teaching hospitals to world-class standards.

 

Social Welfare Plan for the less advantaged

◾ Implement a phased Social Security Benefits Scheme for the unemployed

and vulnerable, beginning with poor disabled and poor elderly citizens.

◾Direct conditional monthly cash transfers of NGN5,000 to the 25

million poorest and most vulnerable citizens upon demonstration of

children’s enrolment in school and immunization, to help promote job

empowerment.

◾ Alleviate the sufferings of pensioners in receiving their pensions by

ensuring that pensions are paid on time, and substituting long distance

travel and difficulties associated with going to Abuja or state capitals with

a procedure that brings both the verification and payment process to

Local Government Areas.

◾ Promote legislation and initiatives that protect vulnerable and disabled

people from discrimination and exploitation.

Build Roads, Power and Infrastructure

◾ Provide captive power to critical facilities.

◾ Build an integrated gas pipeline across Nigeria to

increase the availability of clean energy at a lower cost.

◾ Construct an interstate rail and highway system that

links major cities and centers of production.

◾ Increase Nigeria’s broadband Internet capacity through

a national fiber-optics network to spur economic growth

and create thousands of new jobs.

◾ Develop an integrated inter-modal transport system that

maximizes the transportation of goods, raw materials

and people.

 

Better Manage Our Natural Resources

◾ Make sure people at a local level benefit from mining

and mineral wealth by vesting all mineral rights in land

to states.

◾ Protect people from dangerous pollution by enforcing

laws to end gas flaring. This will reduce air pollution and

make sure that gas is not wasted and can be sold at

a lower cost.

◾ Halt the pollution of rivers and waterways in the Niger

Delta and other parts of the country and adopt a

comprehensive approach to erosion and shoreline

protection across the country.

◾ Reverse the effects of the expanding desert by

creating shelterbelts in states bordering the Sahara

Desert.

 

Strengthen Peace, Security and Foreign Policy

◾ Enable states to have their own local police forces that address

the special needs of each community, including community policing

initiatives that restore trust among local citizens.

◾ Establishing a serious crime squad with state-of-the-art training

and equipment to combat terrorism, militancy and ethno-religious

communal clashes.

◾ Provide a comprehensive compensation plan for victims of ethnoreligious

crisis, communal clashes and terrorism.

◾ Initiate a national reconciliation and healing plan, beginning with

a truth and reconciliation commission on ethno-religious clashes,

ensure the teaching in our schools of religious tolerance and public

demonstrations of religious & ethnic tolerance by public officials.

Reform and strengthen the Justice System for faster, more

efficient justice in cases of terrorism, corruption, kidnapping, drug

trafficking and similar cases of national importance.

◾ Make regional integration a priority within ECOWAS, including free

trade, to ensure that a common tariff and currency are achieved

by 2020 under Nigeria’s guidance and leadership.

◾ Maintain strong, close and frank relationships within the Gulf of

Guinea, the Commonwealth, South Africa and the rest of the

world in pursuit of foreign policy that promotes our national

interest,

◾ Establish a new special relationship with leading emerging

markets such as Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) and also

the new MINT countries of Mexico, Indonesia and Turkey, as well

as other strategic partners around the world to create jobs and

promote economic growth in Nigeria.