My economic plan to boost production, others, by Buhari

THE presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), General Muhammadu Buhari (Rtd), has affirmed that an APC government would effectively grow the nation’s economy. 

  This is to ensure that majority of the people feel its impact, thereby positively addressing their standard of living on a sustainable basis.

  Gen. Buhari laid out his party’s plan at a meeting with members of the Organised Private Sector (OPS) at the Lagos House, Marina, in Central Lagos.

  Specifically, he stressed that if voted into power, his administration would galvanise the economy to enhance productivity through improved electricity generation, transmission, and supply; empowerment of Small and Medium-scale Enterprises (SMEs); and enthronement of a regime of favourable investment climate.

  Essentially, Buhari said job creation would be accorded its deserved priority, to ensure that the productive segment of the populace is positively challenged through a well-designed manpower training, development and utilisation programme.    

  Addressing a cross section of business chief executives, manufacturers and investors, Buhari said APC’s change would be positive and its government would identify what policies that were worth continuing and other that would be taken off the table.

  According to him, the policies for implementing his administration’s commitments would be guided “as practical as it is possible to do so” by the highest consideration of how they create jobs in the country.

  The APC presidential candidate, who again outlined the priorities of his government to include security, the economy and stemming of bribery and corruption, said equipping and resourcing the nation’s security personnel would not be limited to the provision of arms alone, but would include uniforms, boots and other accouterments, adding that these would create jobs for the textile and shoemaking industries.

  He said his administration would seriously commit itself to power supply, as a means of quickly galvanising the economy back to productivity. 

  Although the APC supports privatisation of power utilities, Buhari said the party believes that privatisation must go further to include transmission of power.

  He expressed regrets that nothing much had been achieved beyond the signing and handing over of the power assets, pointing out that after the ceremonies, which, according to him, took place a few years back, the real work of generation, transmission and distribution of power had not been done.

  “The reason why the success seems elusive is that apart from the signing ceremony and handover of the power assets, the hard work to connect the various parts of the power chain, gas supply, transformer installation of substations, has not been done,” he said. 

  Noting that based on a study carried out by the APC, the nation would need no less than 200,000 trained personnel to support the initiative to provide power and light up Nigeria, Buhari said apart from the inherent direct employment that it would give, the reduction in cost of production, and the savings from self-generation by Nigerians would reduce the burden on their disposable income.

  The APC flagbearer said such savings engendered by reliable power supply would help the average Nigerian spend his or her money on other basic necessities of life and reduce poverty. 

  He said his administration would fully support the initiative to build a refinery in Lagos.    

  “We will support this initiative because a local refinery means many things, including availability of jobs locally at a Nigerian refinery instead of a refinery abroad, local fuel supply and national security, reduced importation, less demand for foreign exchange and strengthening of the naira,” he said.

  He also pledged that his administration would invest massively on road construction “from one end of Nigeria to the other.” 

  “Road construction alone will unlock a value chain of opportunities in relevant industries for construction companies, builders, engineers, architects, quarry operators, material suppliers,” he said.

  “The successful opening up of Nigeria by the construction of new roads and highways will revive road transportation; truck and tyre manufacturing; engine oil and brake pad production on one hand and also create a demand for jobs for mechanics, drivers and those engaged in transport support businesses.”

  Noting that the manifesto of the APC is the product of a survey that took over six months to develop, Buhari said that insecurity, corruption and the economy were the biggest worries among the electorate.

  He said those issues were interconnected with mining, agriculture, infrastructure and job creation, in the sense that not much could be achieved without security and eradication of corruption. 

  According to the APC flagbearer: “Corruption affects our ability to secure ourselves and it also undermines the performance of the economy. 

  “This current government is being challenged to account for an estimated $20 billion and the whole country is awaiting a report of a forensic audit. $20 billion at N210 to $1.00 is equal to N4.2 trillion — nearly a year’s federal budget. 

  “If it is true that this sum cannot be accounted for, this is the grossest form of corruption. 

  “Just think at N5 million per vehicle, this money would have bought 840,000 patrol vehicles to improve security in every town and village in the country; at N13.5 million for a high capacity bus, this money would have bought 311,000 buses. 

  “From information at my disposal, Lekki Bridge in Lagos cost N29 billion to construct. N4.2 trillion would have built 145 Lekki bridges.”  

  Nigeria, Buhari noted, is too vulnerable, considering that at this moment, the country has to import fuel to move her planes, her tanks and her men, adding, “You can see that we also have to import arms. We are vulnerable because our troops also depend on imported food.”

WHILE fielding questions from the captains of industry, Buhari said what his administration would do differently in fighting corruption would be to insist on due process in awarding contracts, as specified in the Constitution. 

  He said the choice of contractors must be based on record of excellence and the best interest of the nation.

  Asked if his administration would probe past administration, the APC flagbearer replied: “If we continue to look back, we will never move forward, but the day an APC government is sworn in, those who have been responsible for doing government business will have to behave themselves; that is all I can say”.

  He reiterated that his administration would give priority to agriculture, mining and infrastructure, to provide jobs for the nation’s teeming youths. 

  He said for the fact that majority of the youths who, he said, constitute 40 per cent of the population, are jobless is a dangerous situation.

  Buhari promised that an APC government would set up industries to produce tomato puree in the country and stop its importation, adding that he would also set up facilities to preserve the tomatoes for transportation to markets across the country.

  “I was shocked to hear how much was being spent in importing tomato puree, even as I observed that while driving from Kaduna to Kano, a large quantity of tomatoes wasting while awaiting being harvested and transported to markets across the country,” he said.

  On what extent the change being proposed by his party would go, Buhari, who said the change would be positive, declared: “Whatever we see on ground that can enhance our programmes will be utilised. 

  “As far as continuity is concerned, an APC government will at once try to identify what policies are worth continuing and those that are not.”

  On oil and gas, he said his administration would collaborate with major players in the industry to share their studies and see how his government could put an installation that would separate the gas from the crude and channel it to the location where it would be utilised for power generation.

  He added: “Given the ratio of gas to oil in the country, Nigeria should be more of a gas country than an oil country. 

  “Nigeria, honestly, has no business being in the dark because we have all the resources to provide enough power but we, the elite, have failed to manage these resources.”

  In his closing remarks, the Director of the General Muhammadu Buhari/Professor Yemi Osinbajo Presidential Campaign Fundraising Committee and Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN) said the difference between the APC and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) could be found in the manifestoes of the two parties. 

  He said while the manifesto of the APC was both people-based and research-based, as well as designed for problems in 2015 going on to 2019, what the PDP has was the 1999 manifesto.

  “The other point that I want to make in closing is that the transformation that has been put forward has headed south, and not north,” he said. 

  “The Naira has weakened, interest rate has skyrocketed and it is for us to choose whether we want four more years of that menu.   

  “Meanwhile, the Naira is on a free fall in an economy that is import denominated and it will only mean that the purchasing power of our disposable income will continue to reduce.”

  Fashola continued: “The necessity for now is to halt that free fall. That is something we cannot vote continuity on. I will not. 

  “But more importantly, as the candidate has said, it is not very much of how much Nigeria has earned but what value we get out of that money.

  “If we have sold crude oil, our major income earner, for almost six years, at over $100 per barrel and all of us are saying there is pain, do we continue when there is reduced income and reduced capacity with the same team and the same management capacity? 

  “If they couldn’t do much with over $100 per barrel, can we trust them to do more when the price of oil is less?”

  Earlier in his welcome remarks, the Chairman of the Policy and Strategy Committee of the Presidential Campaign Committee and former Governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, said the APC believes that the economy of the country is at the heart of whatever progressive transformation that the nation would witness under its administration.

  Among those present at the interactive session were members of the Lagos State executive council, including the Deputy Governor, Mrs. Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire and the Commissioner for Finance, Ayo Gbeleyi.

  The National Chairman of the APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, the Director-General of the APC Presidential Campaign Organisation and Governor of Rivers State, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, were also at the event.