Three presidential candidates - former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Kola Abiola of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) and Prince Adewale Adebayo of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), on Saturday in Kaduna, unveiled their agendas for the country ahead of the 2023 elections.
The event was jointly organised by leading northern groups - Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), Sir Ahmadu Bello Foundation (ABF), Northern Elders Forum (NEF), Arewa Research and Development Project (ARDP) and Jamiyyar Matan Arewa (JMA).
The interaction, according to spokesman of NEF, Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, was for the candidates to share their ideas and vision for the country if they become President
"It will influence our decisions in terms of who possesses the best ideas, the best thinking
"This is a genuine attempt to get to understand what the candidates have for the North".
Speaking at the occasion, Atiku said his agenda was focused on
economic and political transformation of a united Nigeria.
He said his development agenda had five elements- restore Nigeria's unity, national security, build a dynamic economy for prosperity, improve education delivery and devolve more powers to the states and Local Governments.
Atiku noted that security was key to creating and sustaining an enabling environment for economic progress and promised to ensure that the security challenges facing the country were addressed.
He said, "Creating economic opportunities for Nigerians will represent significant implications for social cohesion, unity and national security.
"Increase jobs will reduce the possibility of our youths being involved in crime, violence and conflict motivated by manipulating religion or ethnic differences.
"A sound education system is needed to provide citizens with the appropriate skills and competencies to explore economic opportunities so that they can prosper".
"My five point Development agenda is a national agenda, it identifies where we are today and where we want to be as a nation and outlines how we will get there", he said.
He promised to grow the economy bigger and faster to achieve a GDP of approximately 900 billion by 2030.
This, according to him, will raise Nigeria's GDP per capita from the current level of approximately 200 to 500, with additional impact on jobs and property.
He noted that although the current growth and projections are significantly lower, Nigeria has the potential to become one of the 15 global economies.
Speaking further, the former Vice President said for the north to catch up with other parts of the country, it must grow its economy.
"To restore its prosperity, the north must grow its economy.
Over the years, the north has suffered de- industrialization and long time social and economic decline.
"Several years of inadequate protection has robbed agriculture of its capacity to support capacity of a more than fast growing economy in the north.
"The combined GDP of the 19 Northern states comes up to about $108 billion while Lagos state governor is with population of approximately 15 million people has an estimated GDP of $46 billion.
He also said priority will be given to the development of infrastructure.
According to him, "the development of infrastructure is key for the national economy to grow and create jobs. Roads and rail transportation and communication are extremely important."
He said, "To build the economy of our dream we must improve the quality of our infrastructure.
"Inadequate infrastructure has been identified as the most problematic challenges of doing business in Nigeria.
"Those who do business, know we provide our electricity, water roads and everything by ourselves. Government doesn't provide anything except taxing us...
"We shall intensify with regulations and tax incentives.
A consortium with private sector institutions both local and foreign to assemble an infrastructure debt fund.
"This is what I proposed in my covenant with Nigerians
"Because I ask, where are we going to get the money? The government doesn't have the money.
"We must invite the private sector to come, give them tax relief, give them whatever relief they are looking for, ask them to invest and make sure our rail, roads, electricity work in the north. Let them recoup their investments... "
Atiku also noted that in the first republic, agriculture was the mainstay of the economy in the first republic.
"Those of you of my generation know that we were educated from revenue from agriculture and taxation not oil.
"We abandoned agriculture because of revenue from oil.
"Agriculture is one top priority I intend to make sure the north receive support so that we can reinvent our agriculture.
"Medium small enterprises are what provide prosperity and employment to the lower and middle income earners in our country.
"I give you an a example. I have a micro standard finance bank which is today one of the best in the country and it empowers virtually only women.
"As a result of that we have moved 45,000 families out of poverty in my state (Adamawa).
"That is why I proposed that we will set aside $10 billion to promote small businesses for young people who graduate from school to start their businesses.
He also said the education system will be revolutionized
"We will make sure that entrepreneurship is part of our curriculum in schools.
"If you have attended my university in Yola, whether you are studying law, engineering or political science, you must study entrepreneurship, it is a compulsory subject.
"This is beacuse we want people to create jobs when they graduate from school."
Atiku also reiterated his desire for restructuring if elected president.
He said more powers will be given to States and Local Governments
He said, "we will devolve more powers to the states and Local Governments. When in 2004, when I started advocating for restructuring, I had a very, very strong opposition from the north.
"Today the northern governors and the people have bought into restructuring.
"Restructuring simply means giving our states and Local Governments more powers and responsibilities and also more fundings to execute their individual programmed in their respective states.
"It does not mean you will get less from what you are getting but it simply means you have more responsibilities.
On their parts, the PRP and the SDP candidates vowed to eradicate poverty.
Adebayo the SDP, candidate, lamented that poverty is an insult on the face of Nigeria. "We have poverty because we have no government, what we have now as a government is official embarrassment.
"Since 2016, the revenue keeps getting narrow and the borrowing increasing. After my research on this APC government, I found out that they don't know where Nigeria money is, President Muhammadu Buhari doesn't know where Nigeria money is", he said.
According to him, "80 per cent of the crude oil we produce is stolen and every month we loose about 4 billion Dollars monthly, we loose more from gas.
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"The poverty we see in Nigeria today is a deliberate poverty caused by wickedness and carelessness of those in the government".
He further lamented high rate of unemployment and poor financial management in the country.
He said "Management of finance and management of money is where the government makes us poor, because government is not controlling his budget we are having wasted of government money.
"The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is run by politicians which is also corrupt, money that is suppose to flow into business are flowing into politics. The mismanagement is leading to inflation".
According to him, "Politicians are playing bad politics thereby using religion and ethnicity to cause disunity and tension among Nigerians."
On his part, Abiola of the PRP spoke about his three point agenda aimed at addressing poverty, insecurity unemployment and corruption. Abiola promised to strengthen the economy and make the country an export oriented hub of Africa.
He added that it was time the young people were allowed to taste leadership in Nigeria, stressing that he will build on his late father's democractic values.
He promised to unite Nigerians to live peacefully with one another to promote economic prosperity.
"I will use geographical and regional diversities of Nigeria for strength, unity and purposeful leadership and development", he said.
He argued that the country could not get it right in her strive for develpment after six decades of independence because, people at the grassroots whom he noted should be the first priority of policy makers had been abandoned to fend for themselves without any form of concrete support from governments.
Three more presidential candidates are expected to appear for the interactive session on Monday.
