PRESIDENTIAL PODIUM: Promise of Abundance from Tope Fasua

By Udora Orizu

Tope Kolade Fasua, 48, is an economist, writer and politician.  He is the founder and CEO of Global Analytics Consulting Limited, an international consulting firm with headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria. He is an Economist by training, a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) and a Member of the Institute of Directors (MIoD). He also possesses a Masters Degree with Distinction, in Financial Markets and Derivatives from London Metropolitan University. As a political reformer, he founded the Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party (ANRP). He serves as the party’s National Chairman and Presidential candidate. Fasua has six books to his credit Fasua has authored four books; ‘Crushed’, ‘Things to Do Before Your Career Disappears’, ‘The Race for Capital’, and ‘A Change Will Come’. He is also rounding-up a PhD in Public Policy and Leadership at Walden University, USA.

Education

This is the fulcrum of development. We will focus education on socioeconomic development. We will declare immediate emergency on the situation where 15 million Nigerian children are out of school. This is 100 years of this country mortgaged and is the biggest existential challenge we have as a people. Any parent who rejects compulsory basic education for their children shall be strongly counseled and recalcitrant ones prosecuted as prescribed by the constitution. Our secondary and tertiary institutions will be recalibrated to solve problems not just for issuance of certificate. A body will be set up to review projects, thesis and dissertations from all higher institutions, in order to sieve out the best proposals and use them with reference researcher. Focus will be on jobs for secondary school leavers who will be supervised by university graduates. We will work towards returning public schools, even if we have to adopt the approach of giving many back to the initial clergies which established them.

Health

Mass training and recruitment of health assistants, who will function for first aid and administration while we strive to reverse the brain drain that sucks all our medical doctors, pharmacists and senior health workers abroad. A functioning health Centre will be available in all villages. We shall also employ health education experts to train our people on hygiene and thereby reduce public health bill.

Agriculture

Amplify the role of science in seed and yield improvements. Assist subsistence farmers for better productivity and manage transition to mechanization. We must urgently coach our subsistence farmers on ways of maximizing crop productivity. New improved seeds must mainstream all over the nation. Promote commodity boards or clustering for price stability. Agric productivity no longer relies on land mass. Through the further scientification of agriculture, we shall ensure no Nigerian remains food hungry and where possible we shall provide for other African countries and ensure food is cheap in a way that the Naira is strengthened when basic income is able to cover food needs of families twice over. Focus remains on organic foods, health is emphasized.

Security

Most of our insecurity problems are intelligence-based. To be tackled by youth involvement and employment into intelligence, paramilitary and light security work. Our youths will do this job with dignity and secure their neighborhoods. A systematic overhaul of intelligence services will be carried out and several layers of checks and balances instituted to ensure sabotage and espionage is eliminated. We shall start rebuilding our capabilities to provide our own weaponry rather than the 100% reliance on foreign countries which comes with attendant delays, compromises and vulnerabilities.

Economy

First we must properly separate the need to diversify government sources of revenue, from diversifying the entire economy as a whole. The areas which I expect to look for additional revenue for government include tourism, solid minerals, more compliance with taxes, fees, fines, rates, duties and levies that are currently being flouted at will and a general organization of our society like other people have done. We will deliberately go after those who are in government and have flouted Nigeria’s laws as examples as is being done elsewhere. If people see government officials, politicians and top civil servants being held to account they will conform with the laws of the land and revenues will rise. We will rapidly proceed to in producing complex goods that can command value in global markets. It is in ensuring that we keep our money within the family and that whatever Nigerians need can be bought from another Nigerian and should be made from materials, ideas, technology, knowledge and innovations that are made in Nigeria. Increase per capita national budget to at least $300pa from the paltry $138 per annum in 2018. In two years of governance, achieve at least GDP growth rate of 15 pa year on year for 4 years.

Infrastructure

Within three years of ensure all state capitals are connected by passenger and cargo rail to reduce pressure on road transport. Through scientific collaborations, evolve new materials that will ensure our roads don’t fall apart every year. On water, We have fix our water systems ourselves. We shall go back to our universities and polytechnics and challenge students and academia to come up with solutions to this crisis. We will provide potable water all over the country and use innovative ways to distribute to our people where the infrastructure has broken down. On energy, the solution to our energy and power problem is again internal. We will mainstream alternative energy and use this opportunity to rejig the importance of the educational sector. We will empower and fund engineering departments to take as hands on projects and get very practical by lighting up villages and small towns around them. Also high end homes in large cities will be mandated to install alternative energy systems such as solar and inverters so that we have more power to channel to factories and some for our low income population.