At Last, Obi Releases Pact with Nigerians

The presidential candidate of Labour Party, Peter Obi, has finally made public his long awaited manifesto, reeling out his plans for Nigerians if elected President next year, Udora Orizu reports

Two days ago, the presidential candidate of Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, finally released his manifesto as his electioneering campaign heats up nationwide.

For sometime now, criticisms have trailed the delay in the release of Obi’s ‘manifesto’ which is a sector-specific policy options that a political party intends to pursue once elected.

The LP presidential candidate, who is contesting against the All Progressives Congress’ Ahmed Bola Tinubu, Peoples Democratic Party’s Atiku Abubakar, New Nigeria Peoples Party’s Rabiu Kwankwaso, and 14 others had in October, 2022, told BBC that he is waiting for the positions of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) before releasing his manifesto.

The latest criticism, came from the spokesperson of the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council, Festus Keyamo, who listed conditions for which his party will accept to debate with Peter Obi.

Keyamo said Obi should first release his manifesto before any debate with him could be considered by the APC.

At last on December 4, 2022, Obi, a former two-time governor of Anambra State, released his manifesto, a 72-page document, titled, ‘It’s POssible: Our Pact with Nigerians’, promising that he and the party’s vice presidential candidate, Yusuf Datti Baba- Ahmed, will offer honest and competent leadership to deliver seven priorities, aimed at stopping deterioration and redirect Nigeria to prosperity and sustainable development.

Announcing the release of the manifesto on his verified Twitter page, Obi wrote, “I have the honour to present our 72-page Manifesto, titled, ‘It’s POssible: Our Pact with Nigerians.’ This Manifesto, its overarching and visionary policy planks, lays out our mission focus and mandate for securing, uniting and making Nigeria productive.”

In the document, Obi emphasised on the need for a secure, united and prosperous Nigeria that works for everyone and that realises the hope of black people of the world as a city on the hill.

He said he will run a government of national unity, bringing together for the task at hand, all competent, honest, and diligent Nigerians, irrespective of their political affiliations.

On security, the presidential flag bearer said if elected, he will end banditry and insurgency, and unite the nation, to manage diversity such that no one is left behind.

According to him, his government will deal decisively with insecurity by putting a permanent end to the incessant banditry, insurgency, kidnaping and cross-border terrorism in the country today.

To achieve this, he said his administration will, among other initiatives, “activate all the necessary regional cooperations and arrangements for securing our borders with neighboring countries in west and central Africa, particularly Niger,Chad,and Cameroun, increase the personnel of our armed forces, police and other security agencies and optimally equip, train, and fund them to respond adequately to security threats, deploy state-of-the-art military technology to fight terrorists, bandits, insurgents and kidnappers, recreate community relations with security agencies in order to increase public trust and build human intelligence to restore law and order in the communities, and pursue proactively and deliberately policies that will implement the fundamental objectives and directive principles of state police in the constitution so as to create a secured society that reduces the social pressure for crimes and provides viable livelihood for the youths.”

On economy, Obi said his administration will shift emphasis from consumption to production by running a production-centered economy that is driven by an agrarian revolution and export- oriented industrialization.

According to him, “in consideration of our current ranking as the least competitive economy in Africa with very low total factor productivity (TFP) and export competitiveness index (ECI), we will, with all sense of urgency, aggressively pursue policies and programmes that enhance the productivity and competitiveness of all the sectors of the Nigerian economy.

“In addition to our strategic economic development plan, we have reviewed and selectively adopted critical elements in previous economic development plans in designing the bold and innovative development agenda for the new Nigeria that we shall birth.

“While acknowledging the critical situation with our food security, we will, with the required sense of urgency, optimize all the comparative advantages of our 36 states and the FCT, across all the agricultural value chains through adequate and targeted investments, policies, and programmes. We shall address the identified impediments (banditry, kidnapping, terrorism, desertification, policies) and optimize the vast land and other resources, particularly in our northern region, in order to enhance food security and advance toward agro-based industrialization.”

On restructuring, he said his government will “restructure the polity through effective legal and institutional reforms to entrench the rule of law, aggressively fight corruption, reduce cost of governance, and establish an honest and efficient civil service. To achieve these: We will strengthen our federalism by critically reviewing the 68 items on the exclusive list of the Federal government and moving agreed items to the concurrent list, to ensure effective public action for growth and sustainable livelihood.

“Our drive towards restructuring of the federation shall follow a determined, functional, approach for efficiency, productivity, sustainability, and equity for a balanced national development where no component of the federation shall feel short-changed. We realise that nothing can be achieved in this area except we achieve a consensus. We understand that it is the responsibility of the leadership to help to stimulate and attain a genuine and enduring consensus on such matters.”

On technological innovation, the LP presidential candidate said he will, “leapfrog Nigeria into the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR), through the application of scientific and technological innovations to create a digital economy. Building on the gains of the agriculture-led manufacturing and export. We will pursue the development of capacities to leverage on the emerging disruptive digital technologies, automation, Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence, robotics, virtual reality, block chain technology, biotechnology and data science,all of which are at the heart of the fourth industrial revolution.”

On infrastructural development, Obi said, “we will build expansive and world-class infrastructure for efficient power supply, rail, road and air transportation, and pipeline network, through integrated public-private partnerships, and entrepreneurial public sector governance. We will address current bottlenecks in extant national policies and frameworks with the view to unlock resources for investment in critical physical and social infrastructure.

“We will seek to harmonize agencies involved in the infrastructure space to address coordination failures that impede effectiveness and efficiency. We will explore innovative solutions to address the shortcomings in the current PPP regime. The World Bank recognizes this in its recent switch to blended finance as a means to improve PPPs and market-based approaches to infrastructure provisioning in developing countries like ours. Our government shall go beyond blended finance to create mechanisms to scale infrastructure financing, incentivizing not only corporate tax credit application to infrastructure, but also, philanthropy, and community-based infrastructure bonds.”

For education, human capital development, Obi promised that his government shall prioritize education to serve the following functions: “technical and industry relevance; alignment with local comparative advantages and factor endowments; modern skills proficiency, critical thinking, ethical citizenship values, global competitiveness, and talent export.

“Our government will enter into strategic partnerships with state governments, private-led groups and international partners to establish incubators that will train young Nigerians in the latest digital and technological skills, provide workspaces, access to seed funding and mentorship by industry experts.

“Enhance the human capital of Nigerian youths for productivity and global competitiveness through investment in world-class scholarship and research, quality healthcare, and entrepreneurship education. Achieving the revolution we envisage for the educational sector would require bold initiatives including retraining, retooling and re-certification of teachers, incentivising industry experts to take up teaching roles in  partnership with universities, curriculum overhaul and policy and institutional review.”

On diplomacy and rights of Nigerians in diaspora, Obi said a Labour Party-led administration will, “conduct an afro-centric diplomacy that protects the rights of Nigerian citizens abroad and advances the economic interests of Nigerians and Nigerian businesses in a changing world. “While Africa will remain the focus of our foreign policy, we will prioritize Nigeria’s economic interest through promoting Nigerian businesses and protecting our people across the globe.

Trade and investment will remain core components of our African foreign policy.

Our foreign policy will integrate ‘Citizen Diplomacy’ and ‘Economic Diplomacy’.

We will be unrelenting in protecting the rights of Nigeria anywhere in the world, as well as pragmatically respond to changes in the global economic order in a manner that leverages diplomacy for economic development in Nigeria. We will end the days of ‘coctail diplomacy’.

“We will be a development list like South Korea and Japan under their reformist governments. We will rebuild Nigeria’s military power, re-organise its security architecture and enhance its technological prowess to improve security at home and Nigeria’s diplomatic influence in sub-regional, regional, and global affairs via peace keeping activities.

“We will proactively reassert Nigeria’s leadership role in African affairs through constructive engagement using existing sub-regional and regional fora, as well as bilateral platforms for dialogue on current and emerging challenges.

We shall creatively deploy Nigeria’s soft power in Africa and around the world through Nigeria’s leading role in entertainment–music and Nollywood–to enhance the effectiveness of our domestic economic growth strategies.

We will pay special attention to the ECOWAS region in order to secure our borders and ensure the integrity of regional security and development.”