Ahead of next year’s general election, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has said it is in the process of unveiling its revised manifesto to the Nigerian electorate.
The manifesto is divided basically into six areas: national security, capital development, good governance, human development, land and natural resources and foreign policy.
Under good governance, the APC spokesman, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said his partywould fight corruption to a stand-still and ensure that the judicial system function very well.
Speaking in an interview with THISDAY at the weekend, Mohammed said no effort will be spared to ensure that the final copy of the manifesto reflects the yearnings of Nigerians.
“We don’t just want to come out with something that is not workable, we don’t want to come out with something that will not reflect yearnings of Nigerians. But I can tell you confidently today that we have finalised our manifestoes which Nigerians will be very happy about,” he said.
He explained that under national security, APC had drawn up a well-articulated initiative that will reposition the armed forces, police and security agencies.
According to Mohammed, the national security architecture the party is proposing to put in place “will enable all Nigerians to be able to live, work and worship anywhere.
“We are going to de-emphasise the issue of state of origin, religion and ethnicity in all our public institutions, you know today if you are given a form they would space for; name, religion, state of origin, ethnicity, we are going to banish all that.
“The first thing we are going to do is to implement the Freedom of Information (FoI)Act and encourage its utilisation in all the states, we will follow up by ensuring that our judiciary system function very well, more court rooms, we are going to put technologies appropriately, such as forensic system, verbatim recording machines and so on.
“Under human development, we believe that the greatest asset of any country is the people, so, for the people to be useful to you, they must be well fed, well paid, healthy and must be educated. So, our own human development we as well as education and dealing with their health.
“Then, we go to economic development, first of all, we will strengthen the economic development in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and focus on infrastructures such as power and transportation.
“Under the land and natural resources, the first thing we are going to do is to embark on massive land administration reforms that will enable every state to conform with land registry, and without doing that you can free the land, famers cannot go and take credit, so our manifestos are ready.”
On allegation that the opposition party has been unduly harsh by persistently attacking policies of President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration without offering better alternative, Muhammed said APC has always justified its position.
“Now tell me what personal attack? Mention one I have ever made against the president personal. Give me one example whether I said the man is a drunk or is this or that? You see, I will attack his policies. If I say the president is incompetent that is not a personal attack, that is a statement I need to back up why I say he is incompetent, I look at the state of infrastructure and the at state of security.
“When I say this government is the most corrupt government, I have evidences: the Malabu oil scandal, the $9.3 million money laundry, $5.7 million, the 10 or 20 billion dollars they said is missing, the subsidy scam and so on. If I say the president has been unable to provide security for lives and property,
I can talk of Boko Haram insurgency and armed robbery.
“I can talk about the massive land theft in Abuja, I can talk about the power situation, I can talk about the oil theft that is going on. So, are you saying that we cannot talk about the president’s weakness?
Source: Thisday
