Dear Nigerian Youths,

The #NotTooToungToRun Bill will be having its second reading tomorrow by 10am. The Bill seeks to alter the Section 65, 106, 131, 177 of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) to reduce the age qualification for the office of the President and Governor and Membership of the Senate and House of Assembly. The Bill seeks to adjust the age qualification to the following:

Membership of National Assembly: 33 years

Membership of House of Assembly: 35 years

Election as Governor: 30 years

Election as President: 30 years.

Contact your Representative and ask him to vote in support of this Bill. Visit http://www.shineyoureye.org/position/representative/
for your representative's contact.

Please share this information with as many people as you can before 10am tomorrow morning. It is time for Nigerian Youths to play active roles in Government.

NATIONAL SECURITY

APC's Manifesto:
• Urgently address capacity building of law enforcement agents in terms of quantity and quality as this is critical in safeguarding the sanctity of lives and property;
• Establish a well-trained, adequately equipped and goals driven Serious Crime Squad to combat terrorism, kidnapping, armed robbery, militants, ethno-religious and communal clashes nationwide;
• Begin widespread consultations to amend the Constitution to enable States and Local Governments to employ State and Community Police to address the peculiar needs of each community. This would mean setting boundaries for Federal, State and Community Police through new Criminal Justice legislation to replace the Criminal Code, the Penal Code and the Police Act.
• Push for more support in the security and economic stability of the sub-region [ECOWAS] and AU as a whole and maintain a strong, close and frank relationship with West Africa, South Africa, UK, USA, Canada, and other African countries.

So far: The decision to move the military base to Bornu still remains the best from this administration since taking over the government. It has yielded good outcome, the gradual return of peace in the north eastern part of the country which was formally a stronghold of Boko Haram deserves a commendation and we won't be economical with that. However, save for the efforts in the containing the Boko Haram insurgents since stepping in, Nigerians under the current administration have grapped more with the problem of insecurity. As if to whittle down the efforts of his predesesor when he came into power, the president said, “we cannot claim to have defeated the insugents with the Chibok girls and a host of other hostages still under the servitude of the insurgents”. On the strength of the president’s own standard, it only follows that success in the area of fighting the insugents is still minimal since the unfortunate Chibok girls are yet to be rescued. All that we have seen is the result to artificial nonsense and high pitch propaganda by the spokespersons of the government with phrases like “technically defeating” the insugents when thousands of refugees are still languishing in IDP camps both within and outside Nigeria.

Away from Boko Haram, the resurgence of the Fulani herdsmen militia has become another hard pill to swallow since this government came on board. From the massacres in Agatu, Benue state to those in Enugu state among several unreported cases, the farming community in the middle belts and the hinterland have seen violence visited upon them by a murderous militia group masquerading as herdsmen while the security apparatus sit by and watch clueless as to contain the problem. The consequnces has been so dire for the nation without a palpable atmosphere of fear amon residents of local communities that play host to the Fulani herdsmen and this again reflects Mr President’s approach to tackling this issue considering what we like to perceive as an intentional omission from his Democracy Day Speech few days ago

The Niger Delta crisis has since added to compound the situation. With several oil installations of multi national oil companies being disrupted, the Niger Delta Avengers as they call themselves, have literally declared a war against the nation. The Buhari administration, obviously seem to be without ideas on how to wrap its hands around the brewing national crisis it may become. On this score, we like to observe that the failure of the security agencies in the proper coordinating and sharing of intelligence has in no small measure served to exacerbate the problem. We have witnessed an upsurge the wave of crime, kidnapping and piracy in recent times all of which agglomerate to dismiss government’s claim of making Nigeria secure again for human lives and properties.


Suggestion: It should be made clear to President Buhari that total killing or eradication of Boko Haram terrorists without bringing a single sponsor to book will amount to wasted effort. These terrorists have people sponsoring their deadly acts, those are their backbone and we must make sure the backbone is broken. The promise of “consultations to amend the Constitution to enable States and Local Governments to employ State and Community Police to address the peculiar needs of each community” will also go a long way in ensuring that the average Nigerian who lives in a community is secured and feels secure.


CONFLICT RESOLUTION, NATIONAL UNITY, SOCIAL HARMONY
APC's Manifesto:
• Establish a Conflict Resolution Commission to help prevent, mitigate and resolve civil conflicts within the polity;
• Bring permanent peace and solution to the Niger Delta and other conflict prone areas such as Plateau, Taraba, Bauchi, Borno and Abia in order to engender national unity and social harmony;
• Initiate policies to ensure that Nigerians are free to live and work in any part of the country by removing state of origin, tribe, ethnic and religious affiliations and replace those with state of residence

So far:
The division within the polity took a sad dimension with the choice of officers to help President Buhari navigate the onerous task of nation building. Since the appointments of President Buhari appeared to favor persons perceived to be from the Northern part of the country as against the southern and eastern components, many pundits have labelled President Buhari as a chauvinistic and ethnocentric individual who does not seem to consider the good in others. Such unarguable fact of the lopsided nature Buhari's appointments in defiance of the Federal Character principles have ended up steeping the mutual disaffection within the polity with drastic consequences for the national cohesion needed to rule a terribly secular state like Nigeria. The president's carriage and disposition with his notorious and infamous “97% versus the 5%” statement of giving more emphasis to areas of the country that voted him in as against areas that polled fewer votes, has made him appear as a man who does not see the entire country as one single constituency. He has not only walked that talk, he has even consolidated on it with the recent appointments into the top brass of the government's media apparatchik.

KOWA party aligns with those who see this as an ugly retrogression into the murky waters of discord that cannot trigger national unity especially when we now start to consider the percentage of women that have so far been appointed by Mr President. Considering the well composed promises, who could have predicted the free will and indirect support that manifests itself in the continued silence of the president that the deadly Herdsmen are getting. The renewed attack on the Boko Haram terrorists has been yielding outcome, any sensible person will appreciate that and we as a party is happy about the progress made. In the same vein, we are saddened with the return of the old days in the Niger Delta region. The reasons for their resurrection seems shady and we appeal to them (Niger Delta Avengers ) to open their arms for possible negotiations.


Suggestion: The incessant silent mood activated by the presidency on the continuous invasion of defenseless communities by the deadly Herdsmen is catastrophic and to some extent a go ahead from him. The appalling acts by this sect has not just destroyed farms, properties but has also sent people to unreplaceable but avoidable unreturnable journey. As the chief security officer of the country, steps to curb this should have been initiated and not the silence. Silence is a sign of cluelessness and we wish to believe the presidency isn't. We urgently call on the presidency to set up a committee to inquiry about who the financiers of these herdsmen are and bring them into book for the hazard caused so far. As a matter of urgency, the National Assembly must start to consider the appropriate laws that can help to fill this gap.

It should be made clear that all claims in this piece were not formulated at our own end, to further ascertain and to be sure we are not acting on propagandas, the ruling party’s official website was visited and the pre-election manifesto was downloaded and it was well studied before this publication was made.
As a party (KOWA), reading through APC’s manifesto, we were amazed (this is something to beat), but seeing the steps taken towards its implementation so far, we are saddened and we strongly hope our people have not been short changed.
In the manifesto, APC emphasized on key areas affecting the masses and proffered a partial solution to them, the solutions are more like a subsiding one and not a permanent cure. With the way things are and how the party has being going about denying promises upon promises, we decided to give a soft landing and selected five key unavoidable areas. Areas we will be laying emphasis on includes:
• Constitution reforms
• Security
• Conflict resolution, National Unity, Social Harmony
• Job creation
• Economy
• Industrialization
To do justice to the selected area of interests, the remaining part of this piece will be structured as follow:
• Manifesto: This will contain the promises made prior to the election by President Buhari and APC at large.
• So far: The so-far space will be majorly about what APC and President Buhari led administration has done to ensure the fulfillment of their promises.
• Suggestion: The suggestion space will therefore contain advice and opinion from our database of knowledge which we found necessary at this time to assist a partially confused party in governance.
In no particular other, the selected area will be discussed below:
THE CONSTITUTION REFORM
Manifesto:
• Initiate action to amend our Constitution with a view to devolving powers, duties and responsibilities to states and local governments in order to entrench true Federalism and the Federal spirit;
• Strengthen INEC to reduce/ eliminate electoral malpractices;
• Attract the best and brightest into our politics and public service by aggressive recruitment of private sector people, academics and professionals within Nigeria and in the Diaspora through internships, fellowships, executive appointments and special nomination to contest elective offices;
• Prevent abuse of executive, legislative and public offices through greater accountability, transparency and strict enforcement of anti-corruption laws whilst strengthening the EFCC and ICPC;
• Amend the Constitution to remove immunity from prosecution for elected officers in criminal cases;
• Restructure government for a leaner, more efficient and adequately compensated public service;
• Require full disclosure in all media outlets of all government contracts over N100m prior to award and during implementation at regular intervals;
• Reform and Strengthen the Justice System for efficient administration and dispensation of justice along with the creation of special courts for accelerated hearing of corruption, drug trafficking, terrorism and similar cases of national importance;

• Ensure full implementation of the Freedom of Information Act so that government held data sets can be requested and used by the media and the public at large, and then published on regular basis;
• Seek to amend the Constitution to require local governments to publish their meeting minutes, service performance data and items of spending over N10M.

So far: From the manifesto, APC made 10 salient promises in line with the amendment of our generally perceived paleolithic constitution. A welcome idea and a good selling point during the electioneering days but what steps have they taken so far? It is glaring to all that, the leadership of the party have not been able to even control their members in the NASS not to talk of bringing them together to work towards fulfilling those promises. That the party is in internal shambles became more glaring during the house leadership battle, the enormous selfish interest among the elected members on the platform of APC is abysmal, this is only peculiar to political party whose ideology has been polluted. After one year in the saddle, Nigerians can testify to the fact that there has been an observance in the breach of the president’s promise of constitutional reforms when he assumes duties as the president of Nigeria. The FOI Act, the PIB bill, the removal of immunity for executive officers among others have not seen the light of the legislation. The only attempt at law making especially at the National Assembly are unpopular bills like the Frivolous Social Media Bill, the CCB/T Ammendment Bill and more recently the Bill to enlarge the jurisdiction of the Sharia Court of Appeal that has just scaled through second reading at the House of Representatives. It is to be noted also that the National Assembly did passed not more than 3 bills until January 2016 before these frivolous bills started surfacing. Such legislative or attempt at constitutional reforms overlooks the real constitutional problems that have affected the fate of the nation. The central issues like the amendment of the Land use Act; to free up government’s hold on land, Local Government Autonomy and the devolution of powers to the states and local governments in the spirit of true fiscal federalism among others, have become a mirage.
For us at KOWA, it smacks of the proclivity of the APC wanting to maintain the status quo and bring about CHANGE with the same laws or even worse laws than the ones that led us to this state. This is because one year is enough time to have set those legislative stones in motion. But alas, that remains to be seen.
Suggestion: We are urging the party to as a matter of urgency put their house in other so as to ensure the fulfillment of their promises to the masses. The importance of an intellectually reviewed constitution will go a long way in catalysing our development. Considering what is playing out, APC is failing. If it is taking them more than a year in governance to strim down egos within their party, how long will it take the party to draw out plan to fulfill these promises.