|
My
fellow Nigerians, our nation is
currently facing an economic
depression: massive unemployment,
excruciating poverty, poor
infrastructure, and extreme insecurity.
I ask for your support in implementing
a comprehensive plan that will
lead to the transformation of our
failing nation to a flourishing state
within the club of 20 largest economies
of the world in four years.
Vision for Nigeria
To be one of the 20 largest economies of
the world by 2015. This will require an
annual double-digit economic growth in
our nation's GDP from, currently, about
$215bn to over $600bn in 2015.
2. The Strategy
To realise this vision, we will
undertake a comprehensive regional
investment in infrastructure, commerce,
human capacity building, export, and
security - R.I.C.H.E.S-
A zonal/regional summary of 2007 data on
Nigerian states from the
internet(Wikipaedia) and shown below
gives a snapshot of the distribution of
the regional GDP and reveals
economically lagging areas that are in
need of urgent attention and highlights
the importance of the regional focus
of our strategy to ensure that every
region is developed.
NorthEast( Adamawa, Bauchi, Bornu,
Gombe,Taraba, Yobe)
$22.38bn
NorthCentral( Benue, FCT, Kogi, Kwara,
Nassarawa, Niger, Plateau)
$34.52bn
NorthWest( Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina,
Kebbi, Sokoto, Zamfara)
$43.96bn
Total Northern
Regions/Zones
$100.9bn
SouthEast
$36.79bn
SouthSouth
$74.52bn
SouthWest
$78.81bn
Total Southern
Regions/Zones
$190.12bn
States in each region will pool their
resources which will be supplemented by
a robust Federal assistance to provide a
supporting environment for public and
private enterprises to grow and thrive.
Through the implementation of a robust
fiscal policy emanating from our
strategy and the concentration of our
development efforts in each zone's areas
of comparative advantage, we will reach
a target GDP goal of a minimum of $100bn
in each geopolitical region before the
end of 2015.
The Mission: Joint Action in
Provisioning and Administration of
services in Nigeria
Our grassroots effort requires
citizen-government cooperation in
provisioning and managing service
delivery in the country. We will use an
innovative capital to build our
infrastructure, diversify, and grow the
economy. This capital will come
from:
1. Savings from drastic pay cuts in
the current unsustainable astronomical
salaries and allowances of politicians
and top public officials( combined
pay and allowances per political/pubic
office holder will not exceed twenty
times the GDP per capita of Nigeria)
2. Development levy on working
Nigerians worldwide(1% of salary)
3. Efficient and effective collection
of revenue from all relevant agencies of
government
4. Elimination of waste and leakages
in government- estacode, needless
overseas trips of officials at
government expense, multiple official
cars per top official, etc
On administration, we will contain,
constrict, and control corruption at all
levels of government through the
adoption of the following global best
practices: We will
1. Proscribe conflict of interest in
government operations.
2. Employ transparency and
accountability in all operations of
government and public institutions.
3. Use independent tender boards
comprising of citizens of proven
character and integrity for awarding
contracts at all levels of government
and in all public institutions with
oversight of anti-corruption agencies,
civil society groups, and Nigerian
citizens worldwide.
Also, we will promote sound
management practices in the public
sector to support the growth of the
private sector. We will
1. Emphasise efficiency and
effectiveness as well as productivity
and performance in the public service.
2. Promote team-work by relating
individual promotion to individual
performance, department performance, and
broad performance as measured by the
National and regional GDP.
Operational Matters
The annual savings from the cuts in the
bloated pay packages of politicians and
other top public officials($10bn),
plus additional revenue input from
government agencies($5bn) and
working Nigerians
worldwide($10bn), a total of
$25bn per year, our innovative capital,
will be used to stimulate, diversify,
and expand the economy in each region,
creating jobs for no less than 20
million Nigerians, in the following ways
among others:
1. Provide free tuition in public
schools and one free balanced meal and a
snack a day for up to 10 million
primary, secondary, and vocational/trade
school children in the country. 10 hrs
of community service or environmental
work per student per month is mandatory-
planting trees, gardening, general
landscaping, etc- $1bn.
2. Provide free tuition for up to 1
million post-secondary students in
public institutions of higher learning.
Paid internship/apprenticeship or
part-time work opportunity will be
available to all students- $1bn.
3. Finish the East-West highway,
rehabilitate all federal roads, state
roads, and local roads, and in the
process provide employment to many
people. Easy access to the rural areas
and rural development will help reverse
rural-urban migration- $1bn.
4. Build a bridge across the River Niger
linking Asaba to Onitsha and other
needed bridges-$1bn.
5. Build at least one independent power
plant in each region and remove the
monopoly of the power holding company as
well rehabilitate the nation's
refineries and provide industry
support-$2bn.
6. Continue the dredging of the River
Niger inland and implement the master
plan to save Lake Chad-$1bn.
7. Rehabilitate and expand the rail
network in Nigeria to open up the
interior areas for agricultural,
forestry, eco-tourism, and rural
development-$1bn.
8. Employ additional 5,000 well paid and
well equiped police officers for each
region and 1,000 new military police to
maintain security and discipline in
military installations and baracks-$1bn.
9. Modernise and upgrade all security
institutions nation-wide. These includes
police and military baracks, juvenile
detention centers, prisons, etc-$1bn.
10. Modernise all water installation
sites and distribution network-$1bn.
11. Upgrade educational institutions,
hospitals, health centers and rural and
urban healthcare service delivery
services-$2bn.
12. Upgrade and expand
telecommunications and internet
infrastructure-$1bn
13. Employ management consultants to
teach managerial approaches to service
delivery- planning, organizing,
monitoring, controlling, etc, with focus
on efficiency and effectiveness,
productivity and performance, not on
perks and pay-packages. Yearly
allocation $0.5bn
14. Set up a development bank in each
region to which 1% of GDP per capita
contribution of citizens will go to
support those infrastructure projects
that will enhance each region's economic
competitiveness in a global economy-
$5bn
15. Modernise and mobilise public
service delivery to support private
sector development through training of
public servants to world class
standards. Telecommunications
infrastructure and the internet will
facilitate this and also enable remote
contributions from Nigerians around the
world to the public service sector of
the economy-$0.5bn.
16. Set up a new Federal Social Security
Ministry to manage the provisioning of
assistance to senior citizens, special
needs citizens, babies and their
mothers, jobless people, etc-$1bn.
17. Build capacity to efficiently
collect taxes and social data that will
help us transition into an economy that
is sustained principally through the
taxes of workers-$0.5bn.
18. Do environmental rehabiltation work,
pollution control, sewage treatment,
flood, erosion, and desert encroachment
control-$1bn.
19. Provide
agriculture/forestry/veterinary
infrastructure support-$1bn.
20. Provide sports/athletic/arts
support-$0.5bn.
21. Promote an increase in human traffic
to and within Nigeria from tourists,
foreign investors, and Nigerians abroad
coming home on short and extended visits
to help out as teachers, researchers,
consultants, doctors, nurses, or to
explore opportunities to set up
businesses. In other to facilitate this,
cut government overhead, and demonstrate
our seriousness of purpose, we will
reestablish the Nigerian Airways for
profitability under a competent
management team using the Presidential
Fleet of about 12-14 planes. Start up
support-$1bn
Fellow Nigerians worldwide, we have
adopted a paradigm and philosophy of
politics that will secure, support,
and sustain a universal economic
prosperity in Nigeria. If you elect me
as your President, I will work with you
to exchange excuses for effort and
excellence, and transform reasoned
rhetoric to results we will all be proud
of. Together, we will end the hegemony
of corruption in our national life,
rejuvenate our economy, promote progress
in all parts of the nation, and bring to
a stop the exploitation of geography,
religion, and ethnicity in our
political discourse. If you share this
vision, join our team, support and help
promote our party, organize in your
states, local governments, and abroad,
and mobilise voters in the coming
elections for my presidency, our
governorship candidates, assembly
members in the states, senators, house
representatives, etc. Thank you very
much for your support. Long live the
Federal Republic of Nigeria!
Prince Abitunde Taiwo
abitundetaiwo3@gmail.com
Presidential candidate, 2011 National
Elections
and spokesperson for the
global Grassroots Alliance Party
of responsible citizens of Nigeria-(GAP)-
|
