By Lanre Oloyede
Presidential flagbearer of Labour Party, LP, Mr Peter Obi and his running mate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, have released a seven-point manifestos for 2023 electioneering campaigns.
Tagged ‘Our Pact with Nigeria’, the 48-page policy document contains the Obi-Datti’s strategies for purposeful and participatory leadership for national rebirth based on seven governance priorities which are:
“1. Securing Nigeria, ending banditry and insurgency; and uniting our dear nation, to manage our diversity such that nooneis left behind.
2. Production-centred growth for food security and export -Moving Nigeria from consumption to production.
3. Restructuring the polity through effective legal and institutional reforms, to fight corruption and enthrone rule of law and all inclusive and effective government.
4. Leapfrogging Nigeria from an oil-dependent economy to the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) with massive investment in new technologies.
5. Expanding physical infrastructure – with focus on critical sectors like power, multi-modal transportation, gas pipeline, etc. – through efficient public-private partnership (PPP) reforms (unleashing growth-enabling entrepreneurship and market-creating innovations).
6. Youth engagement and human capital development that improves quality of life of workers and families, and productivity-enhancing education that empowers labourcompetitiveness.
7. Robust foreign policy that restores Nigeria’s strategic relevance.
In explaining further, Mr Obi pledged that his government secure and unite Nigerians by managing the nation’s diversity to everyone’s advantage without any feeling of marginalization.
Obi said: “As your President, I Peter Gregory Onwubuasi Obi, my Vice President, Yusuf Datti BabaAhmed and our team pledge to:
a. Secure and unite our dear nation, to manage our diversity such that no one is left behind in Nigeria.
b. Move Nigeria from consumption to production.
c. Embark on comprehensive legal and institutional reforms and practicable restructuring measures, to fight corruption, enthrone rule of law, and an all-inclusive and effective government.
d. Prioritize Human Capital Development through robust investments in STEM education, health, and infrastructural development, with emphasis on wealth creation, distribution and sustainable development.
e. Engineer the transition of Nigeria from fossil fuel dependency to climate and eco-friendly energy use.
f. Pursue holistic poverty eradication with emphasis on agricultural revolution through effective utilization of our vast arable lands, particularly in Northern Nigeria, and erase Nigeria’s categorization as the poverty capital of the world.
g. Improve access to finance, Particularly to MSMEs, youths and women, to significantly reduce unemployment and insecurity.
h. Ensure that in policy and practice, governance will be made more inclusive, cost-effective, transformative, and less transactional (No more sharing of the national wealth by a few)
I. Ensure that our diversity will be leveraged to give women and youths, the aged and persons with disabilities, unfettered voice in governance, and a renewed sense of patriotism and faith in Nigeria.
j. Ensure that Nigeria is progressively better governed through legislative, executive, and judicial reforms, so that the Constitutional separation of powers among the three arms of government is properly followed and the three tiers of government allowed to function independently and jointly for a more inclusive and sustainable Nigeria.”
