Date Published: 05/06/10
A Contract between Grassroots Alliance Party and the Nigerian People
Our fellow Nigerians, our country is currently facing serious social, political, and economic challenges that have made some people to suggest that it is a failing state. As you should be aware of, a failing state implies a failing people and failing institutions in that state. Because desperate situations call for desperate solutions, we therefore ask for your support in implementing the dramatic solution we propose here that we will all be accountable for. Our goal is the transformation of a failing Nigeria to a flourishing state within the club of 20 largest economies of the world by the year 2020. This is not a stretch. At independence and without a significant contribution of oil to the economy, we were the 26th richest nation on earth(nationmaster.com) due to the great efforts of our founding fathers in the three regions they had direct administrative control of prior to independence. After independence we had a five years of civilian rule before military incursion into governance and later a civil war. A few years into military rule, and shortly after the end of the war, we became the 24th largest economy in the world(nationmaster.com). Since then, it has been downhill, causing a brain-drain, the flight of 20 million hard working and talented Nigerians in search of better socio-economic conditions elsewhere in the world from the economic depression at home. The successful implementation of our solution therefore necessitates the joint contribution of resourceful Nigerians worldwide and members of our party when elected into political offices nationwide. The elements of our solution are listed below:
1. Our vision
To work hard towards making Nigeria join the rank of the 20 largest economies of the world by the year 2020. This requires an annual double-digit economic growth in our national GDP of about 14% or greater. This is also the much touted official vision, but is typically given a mere lip service by government officials like other previous national development plans that were not implemented in our country's checkered history.
2. Our strategy: R.I.C.H.E.S
To realise our vision, we adopt a strategy to develop every region in the country through a regional investment in infrastructure, commerce, human capacity building, export, and security- R.I.C.H.E.S-
A zonal/regional summary of 2007 data on Nigerian states from the internet(Wikipaedia) and shown below gives a snapshot of the distribution of the regional GDP and reveals four economically lagging areas that are in need of urgent attention and highlights the importance of the regional focus of our strategy to ensure that no region is left behind. We will ensure that each region grows, thrives, and carries its own weight, and thus reduce the enormous burden of national economic support on the shoulders of the oil producing region in the nation.
NorthEast( Adamawa, Bauchi, Bornu, Gombe, Yobe) $18.98bn
NorthCentral( Benue, FCT, Kogi, Kwara, Nassarawa, Niger, Plateau, Taraba)$37.92bn
NorthWest( Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, Zamfara) $43.96bn
Total Northern Regions/Zones $100.9bn
SouthEast $36.79bn
SouthSouth $74.52bn
SouthWest $78.81bn Total Southern Regions/Zones $190.12bn
A regional grouping of states will enable them to pool their resources which when supplemented by robust Federal assistance can make a decisive difference in providing a supporting environment in which public and private enterprises will grow and thrive which will make it possible for each zone to reach and probably exceed a target regional GDP of $100bn to $140bn by the year 2020.
Investment in infrastructure
For the promotion, diversification, and growth of our economy, investment in our infrastructure will be a priority. A portion of the funding for additional capital projects in the Federal, State, and Local Government budgets will be obtained through a significant paycut of the astronomical salaries of all elected and appointed officials as well as heads of government parastatals. We will instruct the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation, and Fiscal Commission to peg all politicians' consolidated salaries and allowances to be within the civil service/public service pay scale ending with the pay grade near to that of a director in the Federal Civil Service, but no more than about ten times the per capita GDP of Nigeria. Using a GDP per capita estimate of $2000, the salaries and allowances of all politicians including the President, Senators, Governors, etc, and other members of the public service and public institutions will not exceed about $24,000. As the GDP per capita increases, so also will the remunerations of all politicians and other public servants. Linking the pay of politicians and other public servants to the performance of the overall economy which includes the private sector, will motivate all politicians and other public servants to work harder and give the private sector a better support.
Additional funding for capital projects will come from government agencies and working Nigerians worldwide who will be required to pay annually 1% of the GDP per capita of the country of their residence towards the development of the infrastructure in the region of their origin. The contribution of working Nigerians worldwide, when broken down monthly, will range from about $1 to $40 depending on the country of residence.
Investment in Commerce
An economic development council will be set up in each region to work with the governors and local government councillors in the states within the region on economic growth and job creation especially in areas of comparative advantage. The economic council will include economists, business, civic, and labor leaders. Commercial efforts will include any of agriculture, industry, forestry, tourism, research and development, telecommunications, information technology, and trans-border trade within Ecowas and Cameroon as well as other international trade.
Investment in Human Capital
A revamp of our educational system will be made to promote civic responsibility, economic and social literacy, and functional education at all levels. Teacher education, support, and motivation will be a priority. Tuition will be waived at all levels in all public institutions and opportunities for paid internship/apprenticeship, and part-time work opportunities will be provided to polytechnic and university students. All institutions of learning will be well equiped and well funded and the leadership in these institutions and students will be held accountable for maintaining discipline and making these institutions assets and not liabilities to society. All institutions will be required to support teacher-supervised knowledge application and transfer of students engaged in community and extension services in urban and rural areas. In the public sector, we will retain public servants and teachers at all educational levels beyond retirement, and hire retired skilled people from the private sector, if they agree, as mentors, coaches, research consultants, quality control personnel, special duties personnel, etc, to transfer their years of knowledge and experience to current public personnel including teachers to assist us in building and improving capacity in the vital public sector of the economy.
Investment in Export Capability
We will encourage commercial activities that produce goods and services for export. Each region will have a regional development bank with a well funded import-export division to support export, trade fairs, and other activities that promote the export trade and the smooth functioning of its free-trade zones.
Investment in Security Services
The perennial security crisis that we face in Nigeria require the deploying of robust resources to adress them because the primary function of a nation's government is to protect its citizens.
We will employ and properly train, equip, and support additional 10,000 new police cadets per region to be a part of a three-layered security architecture: Federal, Regional, and Local. At the Federal level, a nation-wide oversight of police work will be the focus. That is the current status quo. The second level is the regional level where the focus of police work will be limited to intra-regional security issues. The last level requires the pool of police officers to be drawn from the local, city, or community of interest. At the local level, police officers will not live in baracks but in the community with the people they serve as neighbours. At this level as well as at the others, police work will be a 24/7 year-round obligation for effectiveness. The additional police officers employed will enable enough police presence and strength for three shifts of work. Inter-cooperation of the levels will take place when circumstances so dictate. At every level, police officers will be well equiped, well paid , and strongly supported by sophisticated command and control or dispatch centers.
We will promote the rule of law, a respect for the constitution, and the security of all citizens.
By allocating adequate resources to the security and other economy-sustaining infrastructure that will lead to the promotion of economic activities and the creation of many jobs, we expect all young people to be engaged in productive pursuits. However, those who choose to be predators and miscreants in society will be made to face the full wrath of the law including incarceration. Nigeria must be a nation governed by laws enshrined in the constitution. We will uphold the rule of law and arrest the current slide towards anarchy, chaos, and lawlessness for which there is no excuse.
Our Mission: Joint Action in Provisioning and Administration of services in Nigeria- J.A.P.A.N-
Our grassroots effort require a joint citizen and government participation in providing and managing service delivery in the country. The challenges we must meet require hard work, financial sacrifice, and committment from us all. We have a long way to go and we must brace ourselves for the task at hand. Nigeria, with a population of 140 million compares to that of Japan. Though we have more land and mineral resources, yet we lag far behind Japan, the second largest economy in the world.The Japanese have been able to rise up from the devastation they suffered in the second world war to become an economic giant today through hard work and the support of the Marshall Plan which infused needed capital to their then war-ravaged economy. We also need an inflow of capital to build our infrastructure. We will exert the necessary effort and summon a great determination to rise from the devastation to our own economy from many years of neglect, corruption, and economic mismanagement. We will contain, constrict, and control corruption through the adoption of the following global best practices:
1. Proscribe conflict of interest in government operations.
2. Use independent tender boards comprising of citizens of proven character and integrity for awarding contracts at all levels of government and in all public institutions with oversight of anti-corruption agencies.
3. Employ transparency and accountability in all operations of government and public institutions.
We will promote sound management practices in the public sector and support the growth of the private sector and
1. Emphasise efficiency and effectiveness as well as productivity and performance in the public service.
2. Promote team-work by relating individual promotion to individual performance, department performance, and broad performance as measured by a required annual double-digit growth in both National and regional GDP.
Operational Matters
The pay packages of top public service servants and the 10,000 or so political office holders which include The President, Vice President, cabinet ministers, legislators, governors, state commissioners, and local government councillors and officials at the various government parastatals as well as permanent secretaries and university vice-chancellors are excessive. When we add the total salaries and allowances of these officials to the huge overhead costs associated with some of their offices, we run into an estimate of 10-15 billion dollars. This is a huge drain on the budget of the three tiers of government. That is why the economy is in comatose, the infrastructure in tattars, and security in jeopardy. In the short term, from an annual revenue stream similar to the current one, we will save about $10bn in pay and overhead costs of politicians and some public servants. With these savings and additional revenue input from government agencies($5bn) and Nigerians worldwide($5bn), we will be able to stimulate and diversify the economy, with the oversight of anti-corruption agencies and concerned citizens, as follows:
1. Provide free tuition only in public schools and three free meals a day for up to 10 million primary, secondary, and vocational/trade school children in the country. 10-20 hrs of community and environmental work per student per month is mandatory- parks, planting trees, gardening, general landscaping- $2bn.
2. Provide free tuition for up to 1 million post-secondary students in public institutions of higher learning and paid internship/apprenticeship or part-time work opportunity will be available to all students- $1bn.
3. Finish the East-West highway, rehabilitate all federal roads, state roads, and local roads, and in the process provide employment to millions of people. Easy access to the rural areas and rural development will help reverse rural-urban migration- $1bn.
4. Build a bridge across the River Niger linking Asaba to Onitsha and other needed bridges-$1bn.
5. Build at least one independent power plant in each region and remove the monopoly of the power holding company-$1bn.
6. Continue the dredging of the River Niger inland and implement the master plan to save Lake Chad-$1bn.
7. Rehabilitate and expand the rail network in Nigeria to open up the interior areas for agricultural, forestry, eco-tourism, and rural development-$1bn.
8. Employ additional 10,000 well paid and well equiped police officers for each region and 1,000 new military police to maintain security and discipline in military installations and baracks-$1bn.
9. Modernise and upgrade all security institutions nation-wide. This includes police and military baracks, juvenile detention centers, prisons, etc-$1bn.
10. Modernise all water installation sites and distribution network-$1bn.
11. Upgrade all hospitals and health centers and rural and urban healthcare service delivery services-$2bn.
12. Upgrade and expand all telecommunications and internet infrastructure-$1bn
13. Employ management consultants to teach managerial approaches to service delivery- planning, organizing, monitoring, controlling, etc, with focus on efficiency and effectiveness, productivity and performance, not on perks and pay-packages. Yearly allocation $0.5bn
14. Set up a development bank in each region to which 1% of GDP per capita contribution of citizens will go to support infrastructure projects in each region.
15. Modernise and mobilise public service delivery to support private sector development through training of public servants to world class standards and retention of public servants and teachers at all educational levels after retirement, as their health or interests permit, as part-time experts to help in training, coaching, and mentoring of other public officers and teachers, as well as in monitoring, quality control, and other operations in the public departments and institutions they were associated with. Telecommunications infrastructure and the internet will facilitate this and also enable remote contributions from Nigerians around the world to the public service sector of the economy-$1bn.
16. Set up a new Federal Social Security Ministry to manage the provisioning of assistance to senior citizens, special needs citizens, children and their mothers, jobless people, etc-$1bn.
17. Build capacity to efficiently collect taxes and transition into an economy that is sustained principally through the taxes of workers-$0.5bn.
18. Do environmental rehabiltation work, pollution, flood, erosion, and desert encroachment control-$0.5bn.
19. Provide agriculture/forestry/ veterinary infrastructure support-$1bn.
20. Provide sports/athletic/arts support-$0.5bn.
21. Promote an increase in human traffic to Nigeria from tourists, investors, Nigerians abroad coming home on short and extended visits to help as teachers, researchers, consultants, doctors, nurses, or to explore opportunities to set up businesses. In other to facilitate this and cut government overhead as well as demonstrate our seriousness of purpose, we will reestablish the Nigerian Airways for profitability under a competent management team using the Presidential Fleet of about 14 planes. Start up support-$1bn
Our Values:
1. We believe that governing is a serious endeavour to serve people.
2. As a serious public business that impacts the lives of people, it must deliver value to the Nigerian people in all parts of Nigeria, in rural and urban areas without regard to geography: it must deliver value in the form of basic services, social security, economic security, etc. Each government department, ministry, parastatal, and public institution must be mission-oriented and fulfill its mission. No excuses are acceptable.
3. Best global practices such as accountability, transparency, and responsibility
must be adopted to ensure the delivery of value to the people.
4. Adoption of sound management practices of planning, organizing, directing, monitoring, measuring, controlling, etc.
5. We believe politics should be a positive sum game that should help all regions to succeed and not a zero sum game of winners and losers.
6. We believe that it is our moral obligation to hand over to the next generation of Nigerians a legacy that is an improvement of the legacy we received from our founding fathers and not our current deplorable economic condition and position.
7. We believe that Nigerians are progressive and freedom loving people, and have equal rights irrespective of their religion or region of origin or linguistic group, and are capable of making meaningful contributions to the global community.
8. We believe that we must conduct our affairs as responsible members of the global community and honor international treaties, agreements, and United Nations obligations.
9. We believe that a wishy-washy and wimpy approach to the solution of our problems does not reflect the core values of our people.
10. We believe that politics should not be about personalities but about principles, programs, policies, and practices for the benefit of people and posterity.
Our fellow Nigerians worldwide, we have adopted a paradigm and philosophy of politics that will secure, support and sustain a universal economic prosperity in Nigeria. Working together as a team, we can end the hegemony of corruption in our national life, promote progress in all parts of the nation, and bring to a stop the exploitation of geography, religion, and ethnicity in our political discourse. If you share our vision for Nigeria, join our team, support our party, organize in your states, local governments, and abroad, and mobilise voters to support our candidates in the coming elections for the presidency, governorship in each of the 36 states, assembly members in the states, senators, house representatives, etc. Thank you very much.
Prince Abitunde Taiwo
abitunde3@gmail.com
Presidential candidate, 2011 National Elections
and spokesperson for the
Grassroots Alliance Party of responsible citizens of Nigeria-(GAP)-
A party with a purpose and a plan to:
1.Transform the present era of pervasive poverty in the population into an epoch of preponderant prosperity in the populace and
2.Close the gap between
a. NorthWest and NorthEast
b. NorthCentral and SouthSouth
c. SouthWest and SouthEast
d. North and South and finally
e. Nigeria and the 19 largest economies of the world.
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