Chief Bisi Akande, the Interim Chairman, All Progressives Congress (APC) on Wednesday August 21, 2013 in Abuja presented the Manifesto of APC with a seven point cardinal program covering the areas of electricity generation, war against corruption, food security, integrated transport network and free education, devolution of power, accelerated economic growth and affordable health care. The program envisions a progressive state anchored on social democracy. The chairman projected electricity generation and distribution of 40,000 megawatts up from the current 3,311 MW by making power available from renewable energy sources such as coal, solar and wind.
The APC Interim Chairman stated that as a change agent, APC would halt the dangerous drift of Nigeria into a failed state; with a conscious plan for a post-oil-economy. “The country can only succeed when all of us have equal rights, where no one is above the law; where the culture of impunity is abolished and where there is a level playing field.” APC would restructure the country and devolve powers to the units with the best practices of federalism and wage a stringent war against corruption. On agriculture, the APC noted that Nigeria, which used to be a leading exporter of agricultural produce, had become import dependent. The future lies in embarking on a massive and progressive re-organization and revolution of the agricultural industry. APC envisions a national infrastructural development program through a private-public sector partnership involving the construction of 4,000 kilometers of “super highways,” revitalization of the railway system, with a projected building of 200 kilometers of rail lines annually. Ten percent of the country’s annual budget will be devoted to education. On Health, it will reduce infant mortality rate by 2019 to three per cent and reduce maternal mortality by more than 70 per cent while providing free ante-natal care for pregnant women and free health care for babies and children up to school going age. Free health care would also be provided for the aged and people living with HIV/AIDS. APC will conduct a census of ailing industries in the states and create an industrial resuscitation fund and new development banks that would make affordable credits available for industrial growth. APC would maintain “a sound macro-economic policy environment, run an efficient government and preserve the independence of the Central Bank of Nigeria.” APC promised to amend the 1999 Constitution and the Land Use Act “to create freehold/leasehold interest in land matching grants.”
Chief Akande remarked that during the past over 50 years of its Nigeria’s independence, the country had suffered seven coups d’état and endured 28 years of military rule. “Trapped in a vicious cycle of political crises, social upheavals and economic under-development, Nigeria has become, not only one of the most unstable countries in the world, it is also, regrettably, one of the poorest despite its huge human and material resources.” APC would therefore confront the seven major challenges facing the country which include: national unity and integration; perennial threats to security, law and order; ensuring rapid economic growth with equity people-centered economic management, consolidating Nigeria’s emerging democratic tradition; human development; and instituting a sustainable management of the environment. “The philosophy underpinning the coming into being of the APC,” Chief Akande continued, “therefore is the determination to bring the country back from the brink of collapse, despair, and possible disintegration; reposition it decisively on the route to emerging into a modern stable democratic nation, with a productive economy that is based on equity and justice for all citizens.” APC would further harness the abundant energies, enterprise and intellect of all Nigerians, particularly the Nigerian youth and women, to move the country forward so that Nigeria can assume its proper place in world affairs commensurate with its size and status as the leading black nation in the world.
