The Campaign Promises of President Buhari And The APC

The All Progressives Congress, APC, and its flag bearer, Muhammadu Buhari, are now in charge of the federal government. During the electioneering campaign, President Buhari; his vice president, Yemi Osinbajo; and his party made several promises to Nigerians. They ran their election campaign based on the mantra of “change.” 

We have compiled a list of Buhari’s and APC’s promises to Nigerians, drawn from APC manifesto, documents and promises made at campaign rallies. Below are some of the promises compiled by the APC and Buhari, compiled by TheCable. They are in no particular order; 

1. Public declaration of assets and liabilities 

2. State and community policing 

3. Ban on all government officials from seeking medical care abroad 4. Implementation of the National Gender Policy, including 35% of appointive positions for women 

5. Revival of Ajaokuta steel company 

6. Generation, transmission and distribution of at least 20,000 MW of electricity within four years and increasing to 50,000 MW with a view to achieving 24/7 uninterrupted power supply within 10 years. 

7. Empowerment scheme to employ 740,000 graduates across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory. 

8. Establishment of a free-tuition and scholarship scheme for pupils who have shown exceptional aptitude in science subjects at O/Levels to study ICT-related courses 

9. 720,000 jobs by the 36 states in the federation per annum (20,000 per state) 

10. Three million Jobs per year 

11. [In another policy document by the APC] We will embark on vocational training, entrepreneurial and skills acquisition schemes for graduates along with the creation of a Small Business Loan Guarantee Scheme to create at least 5 million new jobs by 2019. 

12. Churches and Mosques would not pay taxes under national laws, but if they engage in businesses, the businesses would pay tax. 

13. Provision of allowances to the discharged but unemployed Youth Corps members for Twelve (12) months while in the skills and entrepreneurial development programme 

14. Making our economy one of the fastest-growing emerging economies in the world with a real GDP growth averaging 10% annually. [In another instance, the APC promised 10-12% annual GDP growth] 

15. Creation of 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 enrollment in school and evidence of immunisation to help promote family stability 

16. Recruitment and training of at least 100,000 officers into the Nigerian police force and establish a Federal anti-terrorism agency. 17. One free meal (to include fruits) daily, for public primary school pupils 

18. Building an airport in Ekiti state 

19. Eradication of state of origin, replacing that with state of residence to ensure Nigerians are Nigerians first, before anything else. 

20. Establishment of Crime Squad to combat terrorism, kidnapping, armed robbery, militants, ethno-religious and communal clashes nationwide 

21. Working with the National Assembly towards the immediate enactment of a Whistle Blower Act 

22. Economic stability for the ECOWAS nations and maintaining a strong, close and frank relationship with West Africa, South Africa, UK, USA, Canada, and other African countries 

23. Establishing a conflict resolution commission to help prevent, mitigate and resolve civil conflicts within the polity. 

24. All political officer holders earn only the salaries and emoluments determined and approved by the Revenue Mobilization and Fiscal Commission RMFAC. 

25. Permanent peace in the Niger Delta and other conflict prone areas such as Plateau, Taraba, Bauchi, Borno and Abia. 

26. As against fears in some quarters, Buhari while speaking with catholic bishops in Abuja back in February, promised not to Islamise Nigeria. 

27. Nationwide sanitation plans to keep Nigeria clean 

28. Preserving the independence of the Central Bank 

29. Simplifying immigration process to foster faster visa processing at points of entry. 

30. Special incentives to facilitate the education of the girl child 

31. Full implementation of the National Identification Scheme to generate the relevant data. 

32. Making Information Technology, Manufacturing, Agriculture and Entertainment key drivers of our economy 

33. Balancing the economy across regions by the creation of 6 new Regional Economic Development Agencies (REDAs) to act as champions of sub-regional competitiveness 

34. Putting in place a N300bn regional growth fund (average of N50bn in each geo-political region) to be managed by the REDAs. 

35. Amending the Constitution and the Land Use Act to create freehold/leasehold interests in land along with matching grants for states to create a nationwide electronic land title register on a state by state basis

FIFA, BLATTER AND CORRUPTION

It was two days to the friday evening FIFA presidential election between President Sepp Blatter and Prince Ali of Jordan when the American FBI and IRS-CI cast loose on some classified investigation later arraigned and indicted some 7 top FIFA officials in connection with fraud, racketeering and money laundering. This was mainly due to a former FIFA official Chuck Blazer who admitted that he and the others accepted bribes before the votes that won the election and hence granted the rights for France and South Africa to host the 1998 and 2012 World Cup respectively. Huge sum of money amounting already to about $150 million even as matters keep unfurling with each passing day.

The FIFA empire is presently an unstable and volatile environment where the next point of action is vehemently in the dark. Some section of FIFA were even heard to be clamouring for the resignation of the President right after the incident became famous. These shortcomings and more incidents to unfurl with time and during the course of further investigation, more secrets, mysteries and untold stories are bound to be deciphered and unraveled this might ultimately bring greater disrepute and disunity to Football; the most popular sport in the world. Such level of corruption, nepotism and influence peddling have caused catchy headlines and merited higher twitter-trends and have risen to the summit of football discussions and even supercedes the upcoming and highly anticipated UCL final. 

The highlight of the whole saga brewing up was the hastily arranged press conference by the FIFA president Sepp Blatter as announce that he will be stepping down as FIFA president and he will be handing over mandate as soon as another election is concluded. The level of distrust, distaste and the proportion of dirty ink that keeps staining each FIFA official with each passing day has re-enforce a dauntless believe across the soccer loving minds that the president equally has a hand in the whole corruption scandal, despite his insistence that he did not have a hand in the whole misconduct. 

Politically and issues based, it is basically a paradigm of the on going feud and crises between American and Russia that has been transposed into the soccer world. You are most certainly on track for predicting America will neither be glad less elated with Russia winning the hosting rights for the 2018 Mundial. Evidently too, you do be spending your money right if you bet on America coming up with an investigation against the hosting mandate for Russia winning the grant. Spiteful, you might say, but America will always put peace and loyalty ahead of anything. 

The story definitely does not end there more unravelings and highly classified information are still to be released by the FBI as the investigation can still lead to any point or direction. Like the €5 million said to be paid to the Ireland Football Association by FIFA not to protest the Thierry Henry handball scandal. America really have got a hold and grip of everything in the world. Football and politics together used to be a taboo, making it sound more awkward and clumsy than hysterical because Nigeria as a country faced many sanctions due to the conflicting interference of politics and football. Furthermore, different websites have a thing or two to share from Russian politics, America and the FBI