Now that it seem like we are going to have a complete Federal Government with ministers, it is important that we begin to look at critical issues and promises that were made during the campaign by both the APC and its presidential aspirant.
Below are forty-one promises contained in the APC Manifesto, as published by the party prior to the Presidential election. The promises below are extracted from the two official documents released by APC as their Manifesto titled “Securing Nigeria’s Future” and “Roadmap to a New Nigeria”, all published by the APC and signed by the then Presidential aspirant, now President Muhammadu Buhari.
From “Securing Nigeria’s Future”:
1. Initiate action to amend the Nigerian Constitution with a view to devolving powers, duties, and responsibilities to states in order to entrench true Federalism and the Federal spirit. (This simply means that the APC will support #TrueFiscalFederalism): Page 6;
2. Amend the Constitution to remove immunity from prosecution for elected officers in criminal cases: Page 6;
3. Require full disclosure in media outlets, of all government contracts over N100m prior to award and during implementation at regular intervals: Page 6;
4. Amend the Constitution to require Local Governments to publish their meeting minutes, service performance data, and items of spending over N10M: Page 6;
5. Consult and amend the Constitution to enable States and Local Governments to create city, Local Government and State Policing systems: Page 7;
6. Bring permanent peace and solutions to the insurgency issues in the North-East; the Niger Delta; and other conflict prone states and areas such as Plateau, Benue, Bauchi, Borno, Abia, Taraba, Yobe, and Kaduna: Page 8;
7. Initiate policies to ensure that Nigerians are free to live and work in any part of the country by removing state of origin, tribe, ethnic and religious affiliations from documentation requirements in our identification of citizens, and replace these with State of Residence and fashion out the appropriate minimal qualification for obtaining such a state of residency, nation-wide: Page 8;
8. Make our economy one of the fastest growing emerging economies in the world with a real GDP growth averaging at least 10-12 percent annually: Page 9;
9. Five million new jobs by 2019: Page 9;
10. Put in place a N300bn Regional Growth Fund with an average of N50bn in each geo-political region…to encourage private sector enterprise and to support places currently reliant on only on the public sector, to migrate to a private sector reality: Page 10;
11. Amend the Constitution and the Land Use Act: Page 10;
12. Create an additional middleclass of at least four million new home owners by 2019: Page 10;
13. Create a Social Welfare Programme of at least Five Thousand Naira (N5000) that will cater for the 25 million poorest and most vulnerable citizens upon the demonstration of children’s enrolment in school and evidence of immunisation to help promote family stability: Page 10;
14. Provide allowances to the discharged but unemployed Youth Corps members for Twelve (12) months while in the skills and entrepreneurial development programmes: Page 10;
15. Construct a 5,000km of Superhighway including service trunks and (b) building of up to 6,800km of modern railway completed by 2019: Page 11;
16. Embark on PPP schemes that will ensure every one of the 36 states has one functional airport: Page 11;
17. Speedily pass the much delayed Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) and ensure that local content issues are fully addressed: Page 12;
18. Make Nigeria the world’s leading exporter of LNG through the creation of strategic partnerships: Page 12;
19. Targeting up to 20 percent of our annual budget for Education: Page 13;
20. Provide One Meal a day for all Primary school pupils. That will create jobs in Agriculture, Catering, and Delivery Services: Page 14;
21. Establish at least six new universities of Science and Technology with satellite campuses in various states: Page 14;
22. Establish technical colleges and vocational centres in each state of the federation: Page 14;
23. Increase the quality of all federal government owned hospitals to world class standard by 2019: Page 15;
24. Provide free antenatal care for pregnant women; free health care for babies and children up to school going age and for the aged; and free treatment for those afflicted with infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS: Page 15;
25. Create an Insurance Policy for our Journalists as the nation faces hard times and our Journalists face more dangers: Page 15;
26. Establish Zonal world class sports academies and training institutes and ensure that Nigeria occupies a place of pride in global sports and athletics: Page 16;
27. Assist Nollywood to fully develop into world class movie industry that can compete effectively with Hollywood and Bollywood in due course: Page 16;
28. Guarantee that women are adequately represented in government appointments and provide greater opportunities in education, job creation, and economic empowerment: Page 16;
29. Use the Party structures to promote the concept of reserving a minimum number of seats in the States and National Assembly, for women: Page 16;
30. Create shelter belts in states bordering the Sahara Desert to mitigate and reverse the effects of the expanding desert: Page 17;
In the second document titled “Roadmap to a New Nigeria”:
11. Create 20,000 jobs per state immediately for those with a minimum qualification of secondary school leaving certificate and who participate in technology and vocational training: Page 4;
32. Place the burden of proving innocence in corruption cases on persons with inexplicable wealth: Page 7;
33. Pursue legislation expanding forfeiture and seizure of assets laws and procedure with respect to inexplicable wealth, regardless of whether there is a conviction for criminal conduct or not: Page 7;
34. Provide free tertiary education to students pursuing Science and Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM): Page 9;
35. Provide free tertiary education to education majors and stipends prior to their employment as teachers: Page 9;
36. Create incentives and dedicate special attention to the education of girls: Page 9;
37. Ensure every child attending primary school is properly nourished and ready to learn by providing a Free Meal a Day: Page 9;
38. Achieve the construction of one million low-cost houses within four years for the poor: Page 11;
39. Stop all travels abroad at government expense for the purpose of medical treatment: Page 13;
40. Provide incentives for Nigerian doctors and health practitioners working abroad to return home, to strengthen the health care industry in Nigeria and provide quality care to those who need it: Page 14;
41. Make sure people at a local level benefit from mining and mineral wealth by vesting all mineral rights in land to states: Page 17.
Please note that these documents were officially released by the All Progressive Congress (APC) as its official manifesto, thereby making the documents legally binding now that it is in charge of the central government.
As contained in the document, the then Presidential aspirant of the APC (now President) said, “This document sets out our side of the bargain: the things I as your future president, want to do to change Nigeria for the better.”
To read full document here.
@TonyOsborg writes from Port Harcourt
