• Sunday, November 03, 2024
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… And these are some of the President’s campaign promises

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It is difficult to describe how indulgees came by their poke-nosing character. Believe me when I say they were not born with it. Some of them started showing signs of this disease when they wandered onto this gathering and began to discover that they had, indeed, found their soul mates! You know what they say about soul mates discovery, don’t you? You either progressively age with it or it could kill you really quickly. And it wouldn’t really matter whether you truly found a final resting place or truly began to do the kicking that you always wanted to do.

Now, so many things are happening in this country that are bringing out the poke-nosing streak of indulgees today. The first is what happened last weekend in Cote d’Ivoire when President Goodluck Jonathan visited the country. Right there in Abidjan, Jonathan the President was promising the people of that country that a certain road called Lagos-Abidjan road would be in top gear, if not completed, next year. Hmmm! Indulgees exclaim: “What about Lagos-Ibadan Expressway? What about Apapa-Oshodi Expressway? What about the famous East-West road in the President’s backyard? Why has our President taken what is our exclusive preserve to another country? Are empty promises not made exclusively for Nigerians?” Some of them are really angry at this development. They think they should keep their exclusive rights to our leaders’ penchant for using the phrase, “We will do… I will do…” and never “We have done … We have completed… We are now completing…”

Another thing that is happening and which is making indulgees increase their poke-nosing is that they have noticed that everything appears to be going into the ‘hold’ mode in terms of government activities as attention now shifts to 2015. That means they, including President Jonathan, have taken their eyes off the ball and are beginning to articulate their “I will… We will…” rhetoric of deception. It is the observation of these developments that has made indulgees to poke-nose as far as uprooting a compilation of the campaign promises of President Jonathan when he was shuttling from one part of the country to another in 2011 begging us to vote for him. At least you have a guide to judge whether he is a man that keeps his promises.

Infrastructural development

• To revive the rail system in the country

• To complete Lagos to Jebba rail project

• To intervene and revitalise the moribund Nigeria Machine Tools and other infrastructure owned by the Federal Government

• Government has budgeted N50bn for job development and infrastructure

• To modernise the ports

• To complete the second River Niger Bridge before the expiration of the tenure

Power

• To deliver stable, constant supply of electricity

• To provide stable power supply by the year 2015 so that small and medium scale industries can thrive again

• To ensure that Nigerians do not use generators more than two times in a week

• To explore the coal deposits in Benue and Kogi States for improved power supply

• To construct more dams to build more hydro-power stations

• To reduce the importation of generators by at least 90 percent in the next four years To raise power generation to about 4,747 megawatts by December 2011

• To put an end to epileptic power supply in the country just as fuel queues at petrol stations were ended.

Economy

• To work with the private sector and all the relevant agencies to stimulate industrial growth

• To introduce 5-year term budgeting

• To diversify the economy

• To strive to revive the Ajaokuta Steel complex and Itakpe Iron Ore company

• To address the issues of unemployment through diversification of the nation’s economy to that of sustainable agricultural development across the 36 states of the federation

• To reduce production cost by inviting manufacturers of high demand commodities in the country to set up production factories in the country

• To get industries in Lagos up and running, also bring industries to the Niger Delta

• To in the next 2 years create 1.5 million jobs

• To transform the economy within four years

To deliver Nigeria from poverty, promote agriculture, create employment, create wealth, work on irrigation farming to provide food.

Energy & gas 

• To facilitate the Petroleum Industry Law with emphasis on local content such that jobs are created for Nigerians

• To construct 2 world scale petrochemical plants, 2 fertiliser plants and 2 fertiliser blending plants

• To make investment under the gas-driven economic roadmap result in foreign direct investment of about $10 billion over the next three years

• To establish petrochemical plant around Koko Free Trade Zone in Delta State

• To build a $3 billion central gas processing facility by 2012 to be sited in Obiaruku, Delta State

• To attract $25 billion worth of investment into developing the country’s gas infrastructure

• To, in four years, make Nigeria go beyond producing and exporting crude oil to exporting refined petroleum products because Nigeria has no reason to keep importing kerosene

• To create 600,000 new jobs in the gas industry

• To boost gas supply from 1.0 billion cubic feet per day to 10 billion cubic feet by the year 2020

• To invest in petrol chemicals, mining, research and development.

Security

• To make anyone caught breaching the public peace to face the full wrath of the law

• To make sure that no part of the country is allowed to be a sanctuary for criminals anymore, be they armed robbers or kidnappers

• To make a complete transformation of national security architecture

• To confront headlong ethno-religious violence in the country

• To ensure there is no sacred cow in the fight against corruption; all crimes will be investigated as security is key.

 

PHILLIP ISAKPA

Nigeria's leading finance and market intelligence news report. Also home to expert opinion and commentary on politics, sports, lifestyle, and more

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