Ahead of the 2019 general elections, the Presidential Candidate of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, Professor Jerry Gana on Friday declared that the only solution to the nation’s multifaceted challenges is the total reconciliation of the various ethnicities,, religious and political groups in the country to pave the way for new order which would lead to speedy development
Prof. Jerry Gana disclosed this in Abuja yesterday while presenting his policy document, code named “SWIF” before the Press as his social contract to Nigerians
To this end he said that he along with his team had designed a five focal programmes codenamed “SWIF” aimed at fixing Nigeria to make it work again if elected the President next year.
According to him, the programmes are Security restructuring, wealth creation, infrastructure excellence and power supply, fight against Corruption and Indiscipline and Technology, Education Human Development
Gana disclosed his team had designed specific strategies to defeat Boko Haram and Herdsmen militias and promised to increase the Nigerian Police force from below 500,000 to 900,000 and also increase the number of Assistant Inspector General of Police by making every state have one each and each senatorial district a commissioner of Police
He explained that his coming out publicly to present his policy document to Nigerians was base on the bases of the December 14th Federal High court ruling which declared him as the authentic Presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the 2019 elections.
According to him, “we have designed specific strategies to decisively fight Book Haram and the Herdsmen militia, kidnappers and armed robbers that for very obvious reasons we won’t disclose our strategies here today
” We are under Policing and the Police is ill equipped and under trained. They are doing their best giving the training they get and the facilities available for them now. If we must secure our people then we must increase the number of the officers of the Nigerian police from below 500,000 to 900,000, with each state having not less than 25,000
“Though state Governors are Chief security officers of their states, they don’t really have that control over the police. We will have in each senatorial district a commissioner of police for efficient policing. we will have an Assistant Inspector General Police in every state of the federation. And we wil make sure that the presence of police officers are felt at the ward level. This will be done in the first six months. In doing this we must also strengthen the police with modern equipment and hi-tech technology for solutions”
Gana who also promised to return Nigeria to true federalism said, “we want federalism that reflects the will and the aspirations of the people; fiscal federalism.
And that “the fiscal responsibility Act will be replaced with fiscal expansionary Act which allows for economic growth”
While explaining the SWIFT he said, “The SWIFT program has been meticulously designed to ignite productive growth and thereby mitigate Nigeria’s current socio-economic and governance crises, and set the momentum for
sustainable growth of the economy.
He pointed out that the core of SWIFT was structured to foster a Nigeria that works for all Nigerians, driven by common objectives and people’s participation in Reworking Nigeria.
According to him,” Together, for emphasis, our social contract with the Nigerian people and directive principles are
fundamentally anchored on the restoration of human dignity; promotion of the rule of law; strategic focus on the welfare of the Nigerian people; enthronement of new governance processes; delivery of social justice; and respect for human dignity, human rights, ethno-religious harmony and the sanctity of human life.
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“SWIFT stands for; S: Security Re-engineering, W: Wealth Creation, I: Infrastructure Excellence and Power Supply, F: Fight Against Corruption and Indiscipline and. T: Technology, Education and Human Development”.
Gana pointed out that in pursuing all these programmes, total reconciliation would be at centre in order to restore total conference in all Nigerians so as to be convinced
that the nation belongs to all
According to him, ” as we are today, there is no unity in the land, there is tension in the land, there no peace, there is insecurity everywhere, there is hunger, abject poverty and what have you?
“But all hope is not lost, when we come on board, we fix the system and Nigeria will work again, we go round the country to reassure the people to tell them what we have in stock to make the system better off, we have done it before and we will do it again”.
In his remarks, the Director General of G19 Presidential Campaign Organization, Dr Like Neliaku dismissed the speculation making the round that the leadership of that Party had gone to the Appeal Court over the ruling in favour of Gana as the Presidential Candidate of the Party.
He made it clear no such Court papers had been served on Gana and that the leadership of the party had in fact promised to abide by the of law in the interest of all, saying Gana was in the race to win and to trade with the Party.