.’He’ll empower women and youths, tackle sexual violence’

.How PDP kept same manifesto for 16years – Fashola

Omeiza Ajayi, Abuja

Former Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh has lamented the negative influence of international financial organizations, otherwise called Bretton Woods institutions, on Nigeria’s economy, and expressed the determination of the All Progressives Congress APC Presidential Candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to not listen to their advice when elected into office.

Ogbeh spoke on Wednesday in Abuja at the second symposium of the APC Professionals Forum tagged, “Dissecting the Asiwaju Manifesto, Renewed Hope 2023: Action Plan for a better Nigeria”, with focus on Energy and Power, Women and Youths Empowerment as well as Agriculture and Food Security.

At the event, Tinubu’s wife, Senator Remi pledged the readiness of her husband to tackle sexual violence as well as empower women and youths.

On his part, Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola said while the APC has continued to rework its manifesto in tune with the times and also providing details of its programme of action, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party PDP, kept the same manifesto for the 16 years it was in power.

Bretton Woods

Speaking on Tinubu’s roadmap for Agriculture and Food Security, Ogbeh said Nigeria just has to focus on agriculture or say goodbye to democracy.

“This is because democracy, like a large army, thrives on a full stomach. Credit. How can you borrow at 27 percent to start a farm or any industry? How do you pay back?”, He queried.

He regretted that the country is still suffering the effect of taking advice from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund IMF to undertake the Structural Adjustment Policy SAP several years ago.

Speaking specifically to the youths, he said; “Beware of the kind of advice that some foreign organizations give you. Racism is a reality. Not everyone wants you to make it. Not every country wants Nigeria to succeed. Racism is an ideology. There are people who believe you are inferior and there is nothing you can do until you take a stand. We must move against imports and produce those things that we need.

“SAP destroyed the textiles. When the IMF and World Bank were forcing us to accept SAP, Pius Okigbo and Prof. Adedeji warned us against it.

“The effect of SAP is what we are seeing now. Prof. Jeffery Sachs warned us that SAP was the greatest disastrous assault on Africa. We had no courage to say no but Tinubu will say no to such things.

“We cannot afford to continue to devalue our naira. We must use tariffs to discourage importations of what we don’t need. White wine, champagne are not essentials, yet you go to some weddings and those are the only drinks they serve there.

“We have to create a department of rural development very much like the Directorate of Food, Roads and Rural Infrastructure DIFRRI and under the office of the president. If we don’t fix the local governments, there will be no peace in the cities”.

Chief Ogbeh also spoke of how he tried to import yams as a minister and unnecessary delay of the containers at the ports made the yams to go bad.

He advocated ranching of cattle as. Way to boost meat and milk production.

“We still don’t have refrigerated containers for exports. In Cote d’Ivoire if you are exporting pineapples, the policeman cannot stop the truck on the way. If there is a infraction, they track the truck and bill them. But here in Nigeria, a local government taskforce can ground your truck for three days, destroying your produce.

“Cows are not meant to roam. Cows should settle in one place. In 1998, an ECOWAS agreement was signed which allows cows to move across the subregion. The challenge is that most of the cows are brought to Nigeria because we have a longer wet season. Now, the cows in Nigeria produces two litres of milk, which means we still import milk. Powered milk. Low quality which we still have to reconstitute. Whereas, a cow in Holland produces 40 litres a day, in Israel a cow produces 35 litres of milk per day”, he stated. 

Sexual violence

Speaking on Asiwaju’s Agenda for Women and Youth Empowerment, Senator Remi Tinubu said her husband’s administration will fight for and defend the dignity of women.

“As we did in Lagos state through the establishment of the Domestic and Sexual Violence Agency DSVA, we will encourage all states to institute same and combine it with the efforts of the Police Gender Units. We will create a safe environment via sponsored legislation to support and protect victims of domestic violence and abuse, establishment of online and offline counselling and whistleblowing platforms and the creation of safe sanctuaries nationwide”, she stated.

Represented by the Director General,  National Centre for Women Development, Dr Vilita Asabe Bashir, she said the administration would work proactively with the judiciary to ensure prompt prosecution of offenders, push for more stringent penalties for convicts and better equip law enforcement agencies with necessary modern, forensic, and investigative tools. 

“Politically, we will work with the National Assembly to promote greater representation of women in the government’s MDAs. Our goal is to have at least 35% female representation at all levels of government. We will also work towards progressively improving on the number of female lawmakers at state and national levels. 

“Furthermore, we believe that the National Youth Service Corps is long overdue for a holistic, modern, and progressive reform. As the last conveyor belt of graduates from academic pursuits to real-life employment challenges, the Asiwaju administration believes that the NYSC can be restructured in such a way as to benefit the private sector and youth directly. This will be achieved by proactively encouraging and incentivising corporate recruitment and possible retainership of employees directly from the scheme”, she added.

PDP kept same manifesto for 16years

Fashola who spoke on Asiwaju’s Policy Framework for Power and Energy Sector, noted that the PDP has no reason to fault APC’s action plan, adding that the opposition party maintained the same manifesto without details for the 16 years it was in power.

He said; “When in 2014 I and Chief Ogbeh were working on the APC manifesto, we decided to look at the PDP manifesto and we discovered that the PDP kept the same manifesto for 16 years. They took it off their website at a time. We elected a party which had no policy direction about what they intended to do. We had slogans like transformation agenda without details. At some point we had the seven point agenda and then later it became a five point agenda but where are the details? Maybe it is hidden under their umbrella.

“It was unfortunate that we surrendered 16 years of our lives to a party form 1999 to 2015. And we just let them go. Happily they are now in the opposition. Happily. And long may they remain there.

“Today, when people want to hold us to account, they refer to our promises on security, economy and employment. That is because we have details of what we intended to do”, he stated.

According to Fashola, Tinubu will take off from the foundation already laid by the President Muhammadu Buhari administration in the power sector.

Earlier, Chairman, Board of Trustees BoT of the APC Professionals Forum and former Governor of Bauchi State, Malam Isa Yuguda said it would amount to a great mistake not to vote Tinubu into office.

He said Tinubu has what it takes to tackle corruption headlong, while paying the same priority attention to all focal areas of governance.