It is now 81 days to the 2023 election and campaigns for the presidential poll scheduled for February, 25 are intensifying.
Presidential candidates are travelling around the country with their manifestos in hand to woo the electorate and secure their support.
For the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, many say his policy document is a masterpiece that has helped to fundamentally refocus discussions on real issues about the future of Nigeria.
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The 85 page document, titled Renewed Hope 2023 Action Plan for a Better Nigeria, highlights Bola Tinubu’s plan for economic prosperity, national Security, as well as infrastructure and social development.
Deputy Campaign Spokesman, APC Presidential Campaign Council, Ajuri Ngelale said he has been able to take a look at the manifestoes of some presidential candidates contesting power, particularly, amongst the top four or five and what he sees especially, is that they lack clear understanding of some of the achievements of the current administration.
“It’s interesting to us that when we read their policy manifesto, what we’re seeing is essentially a continuation of the solutions that we are providing that we even started implementation on, such as the PPI
“If you look at the PDP manifesto, it’s a little bit different in the sense that instead of not being so much aware of what we have done and what we have not done, and instead of simply saying they’re going to continue what President Muhammadu Buhari had already put in place, they have essentially hired an external consultant to put together all sorts of nebulous targets and general statements around what they’re going to do without any specific roadmap as to how we’re going to get there. That is really the distinction.”
Going further, Ajuri said when the All progressives Congress refers to its own manifesto, “we are the current administration in office,many of the solutions that other people are now trying to piggyback on, we put in place.
“For example, we’ve put in place the social investment programs, now impacting 13 million Nigerians, something that did not exist before. That is something that is going to be expanded and ramped up under the administration of His Excellency Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“If you look at the infrastructure program, when we say that we’re going to continue, for example, with the Siemens Presidential Power Initiative, Nigerians can believe us because they saw us put it in place in the first place, So they know that we have credibility when we say that we’re going to see it to conclusion.
“We are not those who oversaw $16 billion expenditure in the power sector with zero result and are now pledging to take us back to those sweet days of prosperity, that is not what Nigerians are looking for.
“When we talk about what we have done, we can tell you if it’s infrastructure, we can tell you that we did the Second Niger Bridge, almost $400 million, We can tell you that we did the Lagos-Shagamu, Ibadan Expressway, the Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria-Kano expressway, We can tell you about Kano-Maiduguri, Kano-Katsina, and so many other projects, and so many others.
“We have a record that we’re running on, we’re not making pie in the sky promises on the basis of nothing.
“Our record is clear of performance, and we are going to double down on that, accelerate the needed reforms, and also make value additive modifications to those areas where we can adjust for better efficiency and better performance on what we have already started.
Speaking on the matter of security as contained in Asiwaju’s 85 paged manifesto, Mr Ngelale said, there’s no question that there’s absolutely a nexus between economic growth and development and the rate of economic growth and obviously national stability and security.
According to him, the APC have prioritized in an unprecedented way, under President Muhammadu Buhari administration the social investment programs.
“Over one trillion naira been provided to over 3 million farmers, over 1 trillion naira has also been provided to hundreds of thousands of micro and small and medium scale enterprises in this country. These are unprecedented interventions.
“What we are saying is we want to take that to the next level. First of all, we are going to employ millions of young Nigerians living in the rural communities in particular because we have a plan for the rural youth and also the urban youth.
“For the rural youth, we’re really focused on agriculture as a major opportunity. Obviously, we’ve really dealt with ensuring that the current population of farmers in the country are actively empowered with cheap credit as well as seedlings and all sorts of supplements when it comes to the materials they need to till their ground and all of that. But the next level of it is, we understand that we have about only 35% of all arable land in this country presently under cultivation, meaning two thirds of our arable land in this country that can be producing major staple items for wealth and job creation across the country are basically lying follow.
“His Excellency, Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu is pledging to Nigerians that by the end of his first term in 2027, we would have raised that percentage from 35% under cultivation to 65% under cultivation through a national Massland theory exercise where we would employ millions of our young people similar to what we had kick started with the NPower and many of the other interventions we’ve made amongst others.
“Under His Excellency, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu’s plan, he’s telling Nigerians that he’s going to establish a clear consumer credit system for our country, and he has a clear plan on how he’s going to do it. First of all through the central bank of Nigeria. We are going to ensure that banks in the country are incentivized and compelled through enhanced monetary policy ratios and enhanced interbank settlement offers that they are now incentivised to create a window of trillions of naira where they are going to essentially set that aside for lending to the rail sector, lending to the low income and middle income earning Nigerian that has a proven job history, a proven income history etc. These and many more are what Asiwaju is going to do” Ajuri said.
