MY FINAL TAKE ON BUHARI, ATIKU

My fellow Nigerians and friends, it is imperative that we all take a stand on the presidential election on Saturday.

This election is not just about President Muhammadu Buhari and his main challenger, Atiku Abubakar Atiku; it is about our individual lives and the destiny of the entire country. Therefore, where do you stand?

To help us answer this question, certain salient issues need to be made out here. Let’s narrow them down to just two which are: 1. What is Nigeria's main concern at the moment? 2. Which of the two main contenders is best placed to deliver on these concerns?

In the number 1, Nigeria still grapples with disunity, lack of economic competitiveness, physical infrastructure, lack of jobs, poor standard of education, poor medicare, poor housing, lack of industrial capacity, endemic corruption, insecurity, lack of industrial agro-sector, among others.

To address disunity, the country needs to improve its constitution and fiscal federalism. Buhari has insisted that there is no need to review the federal structure of Nigeria to meet the yearnings of the country. But Atiku says he will review the federal structure very early in his tenure.

I will take economic competitiveness/physical infrastructure/lack of jobs together. Buhari's ERGP is focusing on enhancing the business environment and diversifying the economy. But the fact that the plan has not significantly improved the economic competitiveness of the country is why Atiku promises to speedily implement reforms that would open up the economy to produce goods and services and create jobs.

While Buhari believes in increased public expenditure in physical infrastructure mainly from oil revenues, Atiku wants to use public/private partnership to anchor a modern, supersonic infrastructure similar to models in China, Malaysia, Singapore and some resurgent African and South American countries. Buhari's model of infrastructure will not easily add to existing jobs as our procurement process is inefficient and fraught with corruption. Nigeria has had over 20 million jobs shortages in the last four years, according to NBS. But a PPP model proposed by Atiku would be more sustainable for the creation of jobs and skills for the youth.

Looking at the standard of education and medicare, Buhari had promised to end medical tourism, which featured prominently early in his govt with restrictions on Dollar excanges rate. But his own ill-health in London raised criticisms against the policy. The parallel exchange market was viewed as a huge conduit for corruption in the govt.

Nigeria still need public regulation of the standards of education and both Buhari and Atiku plans to focus on that. Both intend to focus on science and technical education for the modern economy. But the just called off prolonged ASUU strike raises questions as to Buhari's value on the sector.

To touch on housing and agriculture, we see Buhari's housing plan is not well defined viz-a-viz the population growth rate of 3.5% as per GDP rate of 1.9%, whereas Atiku plans land reforms and increased investment in the mortgage sector. Atiku hopes to combine a statement of intent and action to attract billions of dollars in the housing sector with modern global technology and other modern technology leading to millions of sectoral jobs in machine tools, nails, roofing, tiles, paints, smart bricks etc.

Though Buhari delayed the takeoff of his govt in 2015 because of the lack of the right vision, he still targeted to create millions of jobs in the agricultural sector. This however has not materialised to food sufficiency in the last four years because it is still public driven with loans from CBN and Bank of Industry given to farmers in some states mainly in the North. But Atiku's focus is that agro jobs must be massively encouraged through PPP and according to each state's competitive advantage. For instance, Sokoto, Zamfara, Kebbi can attract investments for tomato, cotton and rice, Abia, Akwa Ibom and Cross River can attract largescale investments in palm oil, cassava, rubber and rice. All these will be with value chains and backward integration activities. Oyo, Osun, and Ondo can do cocoa, cashew and rubber.

Let us go to other major issues: corruption and insecurity viz a viz oil sector. No doubt, Buhari has raised much awareness on endemic corruption in Nigeria and a lot of recoveries have been made. But many have questioned the whereabouts of the recovered funds and properties. This is because, the major projects being undertaken under the current govt i.e, railways, airport terminals, and Lagos-Ibadan expressway and Second Niger bridge were said to have been commenced by previous govts on a Chinese long-term loan. The fact that the present govt has borrowed over N23trn to fund its budgets worries observers. And there are no answers as to why this govt, with Buhari as Minister of Petroleum, removed subsidy of petroleum from N95 to N145 at the expense of Nigerians but allegedly makes financial provisions of hundreds of billions from LNG as under recovery as subsidy payments to oil marketers. And with public outcry, subsidy is now officially budgetted at N1.4trn for the same removed subsidy. Who is subsiding who? And there are no explanations as to Senate President Saraki's questions as to why a country that should be consuming about 15m litres of fuel, with less people driving cars in the current govt, is budgeting for 50m litres. Who is smuggling out or diverting the differential?

On this, Atiku focuses on PPP for the oil sector to remove wastages, corruption and innefficiencies. There is no reason why oil bloc owners should not invest in modular refineries and refine at home to cut the exhorbitant international rates. Thousands of jobs can be created with this alone and in the power sector as being planned by Atiku especially, with his focus on managing of amnesty for stolen funds repatriation to Nigeria, which was poorly managed by the Buhari administration.

On insecurity, it’s been on the increase because this is tied to lack of jobs, opportunities and poverty. Atiku wants to engage all aggrieved groups in dialogues and not make wars. He wants to bring innovative solutions to communal crisis, terrorism and criminality in the country using technology and mediatory approaches.

Question number 2: Which of the two main contenders is best placed to deliver?

Some Nigerians are making their decision on the premise that Buhari has integrity to save funds for Nigeria. They are under the illusion that oil revenue can sustain Nigeria's development gaps when the rest of the world are moving to alternative enegry sources.

The question is can you rely on only one export commodity and expect to sustain your economy and country? The case of Venezuela stares us in the face. Venezuelans, a once biggest oil exporter, now rely on handouts from neighbouring countries. But under Atiku, Nigerians would be creating wealth and giving handouts to neighbours. The North, West and East would become the centres of many industries. The North East, North Central and South South will enjoy more competitiveness.

Finally, the international community will respect Nigeria again for its adherence to rule of law and democratic norms.

Because I want Nigeria to survive, MY FINAL TAKE IS ATIKU, ATIKU AND ATIKU.

That is your own opinion. I see things differently from you. Sai Buhari till 2023.

very nice and well stated facts

Your wishful thoughts...

Well Atikulated!