From 1999 when Nigeria returned to civil rule, presidential candidates have consistently offered Nigerians action plans if elected president, with most people hardly subjecting the ‘covenant’ to serious dissection to remove the chaff from the grain. KUNLE ODEREMI writes on the unveiling of manifestoes by candidates for the 2023 elections via-a-vis public disposition to the documents.
NIGERIANs are eagerly awaiting the manifestoes of the presidential candidates of the Labour Party (LP), Mr Peter Obi and his New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) counterpart, Dr Musa Kwankwaso. The two seem to constitute the much-trumpeted Third Force that has failed to make any serious incursion into the political space 23 years after the country restored civil rule. The duo have limited themselves to making promises in their ongoing whistle-stop electioneering in some parts of the country.
Another reason for the suspense and curiousity among Nigerians on the subject-matter is the unveiling of manifestoes by the leading presidential candidates for the 2023 general election: Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Senator Bola Tinubu, of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives congress (APC) respectively. That of the former contains 74 items encapsulated in a five-point agenda spanning different sectors in the life of the country, while that of Tinubu contains 80 items with focus on abroad spectrum of issues as well.
With little or no serious interventions as regards subjecting the manifestoes serious and proper scrutiny, the two camps have been involved in scathing remark and criticism of the blueprints. For instance, the spokesman of PDP presidential Campaign Council, Daniel Bwala chided the APC and its candidate for perceived vague promises that required clarification, especially on the likely impact on the citizens. “The APC and their candidate must clarify how they want to achieve deregulation of the downstream sector of the oil industry without causing inflation and hardship on the people. “It is their duty to provide this clarification,” Similarly, another top notch in the Atiku team, Kola Ologbodiyan, claimed Tinubu did not give specifics on how he plans to fix the sector. “Atiku Abubakar has promised a phased withdrawal of subsidy in a manner that will not put absurd pressure on the economic life of Nigerians,” he said.
The PDP candidate accused the APC of trying to obscure the real issue due to its alleged poor record of performance in office. He said they, however, have no hiding place because: “We will hold them accountable for their scorecards.”
The APC countered all the claims and accusations through the spokesman of its PCC, Mr Festus Keyamo. He said the plan of the candidate on the contentious issue of subsidy saying the trend has persisted because of the resistance from the organized labour, especially the Nigeria Labour congress (NLC) economist, On his part, the APC claimed that Atiku’s action plan was awash with ongoing projects of the Buhari administration. In effect, it has nothing new in the document warrant public support for the PDP at the poll next year.
Challenges
The need to subject the manifestoes of candidates cannot be under-emphasized due to the huge expectations of Nigerians after a bitter struggle to exit the military from political power in 1999. Even though democracy was perceived to be an end itself, it was believed that all the vestiges that characterized the long years of military dictatorship would rekindle hope of a prosperous and progressive Nigeria. It was assumed that in matter of time and not decades, the era of economic boom would he heralded to obliterate the agony and pain inflicted on the citizenry since the ethos of participatory democracy: transparency, accountability, equity and justice would become institutionalised. With the assumption that the building and strengthening of institutions and capacity rather than promoting individualism or personality, frightening statistics bordering on the state of the nation would take a flight. These issues included collapsed manufacturing industries, with the domino effects of job losses, as well as unemployment, surging crime wave, troubled economy, foreign policy inconsistency, runway inflation, epileptic public utilities, festered crisis in education, challenge of food security, ethno religious division and above all, threats to security of lives and property.
There was also the thinking that the new set of leadership would muster the necessary political will, sincerity of purpose and commitment to the genuine yearnings and aspirations of the critical mass of the Nigerian population. This line of thought was underscored by the fact that some of the new power brokers and stakeholders had consistently pushed the agenda for a country where things real works; whereby Nigeria will not be capital of poverty, heinous crimes, including a rapacious appetite for sleazy in public places.
Obasanjo, Yar’Adua, Jonathan, Buhari
The programme and policy thrust of former President Olusegun Obasanjo had included carrying out holistic reforms, fighting corruption, economic recovery, reposition Nigeria from being a pariah state inflicted on it by the military. He created the anti-graft agencies: Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Commission (ICPC), as well negotiated debt forgiveness by the Paris Club. His successor, the late President Umaru Yar’Adua had a seven-point agenda with reforms in the electoral system and security system. His package to quell the militancy in the Niger Delta gave birth to reforms that served as a soothing balm to the region nay the country.
ALSO READ FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
He also focused on revamping power problem and declared a national emergency in the sector. Most of these initiatives by him were sustained by his vice, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, who introduced the almajiri school programme in the North and took pragmatic actions to address infrastructure deficit across the country. In his bid for the presidency, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd) had a five-point agenda which included fight against corruption; job creation, tackle insecurity and reposition the economy, all which were encapsulated in a change mantra.
With 122 days to the next presidential poll, it yet another opportunity for Nigerians to dissect the promises of the candidates coded in their individual manifestoes. This development, a historian, Mr Bayo Omiwole, said was imperative in order to make the right choice with the benefit of hindsight.
Tinubu
A member of the inner caucus of the APC campaign organisation claimed that the Action plan of the party candidate was a product of inputs from major stakeholders in the APC. Some nuggets in the manifesto include plans to build a Nigeria, especially for the youth, where sufficient jobs with decent wages create a better life. The candidate also plans to revamping the manufacturing industries as a way of creating jobs and encouraging self-reliance by the country. This is also with the aim of boosting export and strengthening the national currency.
Equally on the card is sustained assistance to farmers, through enlightened agricultural policy that promotes productivity and assures decent incomes; modernise and expand public infrastructure so that the rest of the economy can grow at an optimal rate, as well as embolden and support young people and women by harnessing emerging sectors such as the digital economy, entertainment and culture, tourism and others to build the Nigeria of tomorrow, today; train and give economic opportunity to the poorest and most vulnerable among us. We seek a Nigeria where no parent is compelled to send a child to bed hungry, worried whether tomorrow shall bring food; generate, transmit and distribute sufficient, affordable electricity to give our people the requisite power to enlighten their lives, their homes, and their very dreams; make basic healthcare, education, and housing accessible and affordable for all and establish a bold and assertive policy that will create a strong yet adaptive national security architecture and action to obliterate terror, kidnapping, banditry, and all other forms of violent extremism from the face of our nation.
Atiku’s blueprint
The manifesto of Atiku Abubakar, according to the former vice president, is envisioned to restore Nigeria’s fractured unity, as well as rebuild the battered economy. It is also meant to tackle insecurity, build a dynamic economy for prosperity, re-structure the polity to foster unity and stability, as well as provide qualitative education. He plans to “foster a united Nigeria in which all citizens can live a happy, healthy and productive life,” as well as “provide the appropriate political leadership to implement a robust development agenda and facilitate the realisation of our vision.” Atiku says he is determined to restore Nigeria back to the nation’s economy to the pre- 2015 level, where country was the strongest economy in Africa, with a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $546.7billion, as against the current GDP of $440billion. Bothered by the scale of threats to lives and property across the country, the PDP said: “Nigeria’s unity has never been so threatened like it is now,” adding that “increasing number of Nigerian citizens openly challenge their allegiance to Nigeria’s corporate existence through violent agitations and misguided demands for ethno-regional autonomy because of widespread feelings of marginalisation and neglect.” He has promised to improve and strengthen the education system and equip students with all necessary skills to be competitive in the new global order driven by innovation, science, and technology.
To underscore his sincerity on the promises, Atiku said the people should “hold him accountable if he fails to deliver on his social contract with Nigerians.” He believes that it is inexplicable that the country has remained one of the poorest and unequal countries, despite its huge human and natural endowments. “Our economy is fragile, and vulnerable, job losses, eroding incomes and lack of citizens’ access to basic amenities have pushed more than 90million people below the poverty line.” He has declared his plan to address the issue of “restructuring if elected president noting that, “Nigeria has continued to operate a faulty, complex federal structure with high degree of centralisation at the centre. The Federal Government has succeeded in accumulating many responsibilities which belonged to the other (weaker), levels of government. The Federal Government appropriates along with these responsibilities, a huge resources to the detriment of the states and local governments.” On the economy, the PDP candidate said his agenda was guided by three basic principles – re-affirming the criticality of private-sector leadership and greater sector participation in development; while also repositioning the public sector to focus on its core responsibility. On insecurity, Atiku hopes to reactivate meaningful registration at birth as a way of reducing crime rate and protecting Nigerians, as well as adopting alternative approaches to dispute resolution, as against relying only on kinetic approach to crush insurgency.
LP, NNPP
The national chairman of LP, Julius Abure was quoted to have said the manifesto of Obi would be unveiled the same day with the inauguration of the president campaign council of the party. The party is yet to fix a date for the event. The position of the chairman was corroborated by the national publicity secretary of the party, Mr AbayomiArambambi. He said: We have to do our things different from other presidential candidates. The day we are going to inaugurate them is the day he (Obi) will now address Nigerians on his plan of action.” A similar disposition held sway in the NNPP, as the national publicity secretary, Major Agbo explained that the exercise was delayed was because of the long period provided in the Electoral Act 2022 for campaigns for the general election. It has been extended from 90 days to 150 days under the law.
Dr Wale Omole, a social critic and medical practitioner, deplores what he considered as the lethargy of the people to the blueprints politicians seeking strategic elective offices in the country. He says those documents should be seen as contractual offer from the politicians that should be thoroughly examined and digested to enable use make an informed opinion on the candidates. He advised: “If some of the candidates are yet to get serious on issues, what should the voting population do about their manifestoes that already in the public domain? They should scrutinise the documents and confront the candidates on what they consider to be real and imagined promises.”
and then