The national leader of the All Progressives
Congress (APC) and former Lagos State governor, Bola Tinubu, has challenged
President Muhammadu Buhari to do more to improve the lot of citizens. Tinubu
gave the advice yesterday while unveiling a book, Making Steady, Sustainable
Progress for Nigeria’s Peace and Prosperity, at the old Banquet Hall of the
Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The 360-page book
is a mid-term scorecard on the Buhari administration put together by the
Presidential Media Team. The APC chieftain who refrained from commenting on the
2019 elections, said although Buhari had used the last two years to lay
foundation for a better Nigeria, many citizens were still in lack, due to the
prevailing economic crunch.
“Many of our
people are without basic needs. Too many parents cannot properly feed and
clothe their precious children. Too many young adults exist in the void of joblessness,
and too many of us do not have the resources to care for elderly parents who
once cared for us. We must cure these wrongs,” he said.
Tinubu implored
the Buhari administration to hasten and complete the good works it had started.
“Do it the more. The good that you are yet to achieve, get to it with a
laser-like focus,” he said. The former governor, who was special guest of
honour at the occasion, noted that Nigeria could not make appreciable progress
without robust industrial capacity.
“Our national
industrial revolution plan must be more than mere words. It must be refined.
Just as the private sector may partner with government on public endeavours,
government must guide and support the private sector into new areas of industry
and production.
“Government must
invest in research and new products the private sector may find risky and
uncertain at the initial stage. Government policy must push and incentivise the
private sector into production of goods that will be demanded in the immediate
future and for some time to come.
“Whether we focus
on steel, textiles, cars, machinery components, processed agricultural goods,
other items, or any combination of the above, we must manufacture things the
rest of the world wants to buy and not necessarily the things we think are the
easiest to do,” Tinubu said.
According to him,
as a corollary to the push for industrial maturity, Nigeria needs a national
infrastructural plan that accords with both the industrial plan and with extant
agricultural activity. The fulcrum of the plan must be continued progress in
the achievement of adequate and affordable electric power, especially solar and
wind.
“We must help the
common farmer by improving rural output and income. We must return to commodity
exchange boards or similar mechanism to allow farmers to secure their income
and prevent loss. An active and expanded agricultural loan scheme is needed to
further promote these goals.
“More needs to be
done to make business and consumer credit available by lowering interest rates.
We also must move toward true federalism by the balance of power and
responsibility between the Federal Government and the states. In so doing, we
attain the correct balance between our collective purpose on one hand and our
separate grassroots realities on the other,” he said.
Tinubu further
accused the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan of corruption,
saying so much money grew feet and ran away from the country, faster than
Usain Bolt ever could.
“The prior
government used the public treasury as a private hedge fund or a charity that
limited giving only to themselves. One minister and her rogue gallery picked
the pocket of this nation for billions of dollars. While poor at governance,
these people could give a master thief lessons in sleight of hand. In
governance, they earned a red card. But in corruption, they won the gold medal.
It was not that our institutions had become infected by corruption; corruption
had become institutionalised,” he said
President Buhari
seized the occasion to reiterate his resolve to prosecute anyone who dips his
hand in the public coffers. He assured that his government was making efforts
to ease the prevailing economic hardship by creating more jobs and social
security platforms for vulnerable families.
He also promised
to tame the menace of herdsmen/farmers’ clashes, kidnapping and armed
robberies within the confines of limited resources, and secure the release of
the remaining Chibok schoolgirls. Vice president Yemi Osinbajo said the government
had begun investment in various sectors of the economy in the past two years,
to provide succour to citizens.
Minister of
Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, who reeled out the administration’s
achievements since May 2015, rated the Buhari-led government high, particularly
in the area of power, which he claimed had risen to an all-time 7,001mw by
September 12, 2017 from 5,000mw in 2015.
He disclosed that
despite the downturn in oil prices, the current administration had been able to
invest over N1.2 trillion in capital projects through the 2016 budget.
News
Source: - The Guardian | November 17, 2017.
Photo Source: - Pulse.ng | January 28, 2017.
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