On Foreign Policy: I will: 1. Make regional integration a priority within ECOWAS including free trade with a view to ensuring that common tariff currency are in use by the end of my term in office, under Nigeria’s guidance and leadership, base on the size of its market force; 1.Maintain a strong, close and frank relationship within the Gulf of Guinea, the Commonwealth, South Africa and the rest of the world. 2.Establish a special relationship with the leading emerging markets like Brazil; Russia, India and China (BRIC) and other strategic partners around the world. The Economy & Infrastructure Base On the Economy: I will 1.Maintain sound Micro and macro?economic policy environment, and run an efficient government and preserve the independence of the Central Bank; 2.Restore financial confidence in the citizens and the world, by putting in place a more robust monitoring, supervising, and regulating of the financial institutions; 3.Make our economy one of the fastest growing emerging economies in the world with a real GDP growth averaging at least 10-12% annually 4.As at 1999, Nigerian rate of unemployment stood at about 8%, today it is estimated from official statistics to be close to 30%. I will embark on vocational training, entrepreneurial and skills acquisition scheme for graduates along with the creation of Small Business Loan Guarantee Scheme to create at least 5 million new jobs by 2019. A Small and Medium Enterprises Development Commission will be created for this purpose. I will also encourage State Governments to focus on employment creation, by matching everyone job created in the same state. 5.Integrate the informal economy into the mainstream and prioritize the full implementation of the National Identification Scheme to generate the relevant data; 6.Expand domestic demand and will undertake associated public works programmes to achieve this goal; 7.Embark on export and production diversification including investment in infrastructure; promote manufacturing, through Agro Based industries; and expand and promote sub?regional trade through ECOWAS and AU; 8.Make Information Technology, Manufacturing, Agriculture and Entertainment key drivers of our economy, by reviewing the present reward system, which is based on certification, to that based on skills, competencies, and performances; 9.Balance the Nigerian economy across regions by the creation of 6 Regional Economic Development Agencies (REDAs) to act as sub?regional hubs in order to promote healthy regional competitiveness; 10. Put in place a N300bn Regional Growth Fund with an average of N50bn in each geo?political region; to be managed by the REDAs, to encourage private sector enterprise and to support places currently reliant on only on the public sector, to migrate to a private sector reality; 10.Amend 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; 11.Create an additional middle?class of at least 4 million new home owners by 2019 by enacting a national mortgage single digit interest rates for purchase of owner occupier houses as well as review the collateral qualification to make funding for home ownership easier, with a 15 to 30 year mortgage terms. This will equally help our banking system migrate from short to long term perspective of their role in sustaining the economy. 12.Create a Social Welfare Program 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. 13.Provide allowances to the discharged but unemployed Youth Corps members for Twelve (12) months while in the skills and entrepreneurial development programmes. On Agriculture: I will 1.Modernize the sector and change Nigeria from being a country of self?subsistence farmers to that of a medium/large scale farming nation/producer; 2.Create a nationwide food inspectorate division with a view to improving nutrition and eliminating food?borne hazards 3.Inject sufficient funds to the Agricultural sector to create more agro?allied jobs by way of loans at nominal interest rates for capital investment on medium and commercial scale cash crops; 4.Guarantee a minimum price for all cash crops and facilitate storage of agricultural products to overcome seasonal shortages of selected food crops. 5.Move the nation to an all year round small, medium, and commercial farming through a coordinated integrative irrigation of our existing dams as well as creation of more dam to collect the over flooding waters, nationwide. 6.Revive our Agricultural Research Institutes that are in a state of comatose; 7.Review and strengthened Veterinary practices nationwide. Continued
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 00:07:53 +0000
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