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Sowore lays out three economic action plans at Lagos forum

By Kehinde Olatunji
14 February 2019   |   6:52 pm
The candidate of African Action Congress (AAC), Mr. Omoyele Sowore, has laid out his economic blueprint, as campaigns wind down ahead of tomorrow’s presidential and National Assembly elections.
Omoyele Sowore, the presidential candidate of the African Action Congress

The candidate of African Action Congress (AAC), Mr. Omoyele Sowore, has laid out his economic blueprint, as campaigns wind down ahead of tomorrow’s presidential and National Assembly elections. It was at a business roundtable two days ago where he met leaders of Lagos business community at Landmark Event Centre, Oniru, Lagos.

Tagged ‘The Business Round Table with Sowore: Making Nigeria Economy Consequential,’ other speakers at the interactive forum included Director General, Sowore 2019 Campaign, Dr. Malcolm Fabiyi, and strategist, political, business and brand analyst, Segun Awosanya.

The objective of the forum was to present the AAC policy document and party manifesto that dwell extensively on the party’s three pillars and 10 agenda items, which the party calls “A Sacred Covenant with the Nigerian People,” which set itself apart and probably reflect the level of the party’s passion and commitment to making their economic blueprint a reality.

“I will run an economy that is all-inclusive and not an economy that is based on powerpoint presentations or those economic models that are not only outdated, but that the people who actually set them up have come to apologize that those models cannot work,” Sowore said. “There must be something domestic about the intelligence that is driving our economic model. What I am talking about is a new political economy and not economic philosophy.”

Sowore said AAC’s three strategic pillars also embody 10 items known as SPICER-HEAT, acronym for Security, Power, Infrastructure, Corruption and Public-Sector Reforms, Economy and Jobs, Restructuring, Healthcare, Education, Agriculture, Tourism and Culture.Fabiyi, who was chief presenter of the policy document, went nostalgic about how Sowore’s #TakeItBack Movement started and how Sowore, from the outset, always wanted three things in his economic policy, namely “ensuring that there is security and not just security as explained in terms of safety of life and property, but security in terms of food and social welfare.”

Speaking further, Malcolm said: “He wants sustainability on programmes that are not just creative but programmes that create things that could sustain themselves. Finally, he wants self-sufficiency that, at the end of four years, what he wants to see is a situation in which Nigeria is self-sufficient, where we are no longer a nation that produces two million barrels of oil per day and imports 300,000 barrels of fuel when we have four refineries that have the capacity of 450,000 barrels in the country.”

Sowore said his three-pronged action plan for driving growth and prosperity for all Nigerians is based on three strategic pillars – National Security, Sustainable Growth, and Self-sufficiency. He lamented the overwhelming failure in the country where citizens are always left high and dry by the politicians who promise heaven and earth, but deliver next to nothing. He stated that promise-and-fail trick was being used to deceive the electorate once again in this election campaign season, and asked Nigerians not to believe any of them.

With AAC’s feasible blueprint, he said, “There would be no need lying that you are producing rice whereas statistics is showing that more rice is passing through our porous borders. There is no point lying that you have fixed your roads because elections are coming, and as soon as elections are over, the roads are washed away by little rain. There is no point lying that the health sector is now doing well and the next time the president has flu, he is flown by air ambulance to London. So, those are practically the three legs that our agenda stands on right now.”

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