The International
Press Centre (IPC) Lagos-Nigeria, has released (see the attached) a
compilation of the campaign promises made by President Muhammadu
Buhari in the course of electioneering activities for the 2019 general
elections.
Thirty (30) of such promises
covering pledges on specific and general issues of Road/Rail
infrastructure, Education, Agriculture, Poverty Eradication and Inclusion of
Youths/Women in government as well as the fight against Corruption and
Insecurity were documented.
The documentation was done by IPC’s Media Monitoring Team,
while the promises were derived from quoted statements of the Presidentin The Nation, The Punch, Daily Sun, Daily Trust,
Vanguard, This Day, Leadership and Nigerian Tribune newspapers over
a four-month period from November 2018 to February 2019.
The specific sources were page 6, The Nation newspaper
of Monday November 19, 2018; page 2, The Punch Newspaper
of Monday November 19, 2018; page 6, Daily Sun newspaper of
Monday, November 19, 2018; front page, Daily Trust newspaper
of Monday, November 19,2018; page 5 and 41, Vanguard newspaper
of November 19, 2018; page 1 and 10, This Day of
November 19, 2018; page 2,Nigerian Tribune of November 19, 2018;
page 25, Leadership newspaper of December 5, 2018; front
page, Thisday, January 17, 2019; page 12, Daily Sun Newspaper,
Thursday, January 31, 2019; page 9, Nigerian Tribune of January
17, 2019; and front page, VanguardNewspaper, February 09, 2019.
The promises are:
1. To engage one million
N-power graduates and skill up 10 million Nigerians in partnership with the
private sector.
2. To expand the school
feeding programme from 9.3m to 15 million children, creating 300,000 extra jobs
for food vendors and farmers.
3. To complete the
Ibadan/Kano phase of the Lagos/Kano rail link.
4. To complete the Port
Harcourt/Maiduguri line.
5. To complete the
Itakpa/Warri link to Abuja, through Lokoja.
6. To complete the
Second Niger Bridge and the East West Road connecting Warri, Delta State, to
Oron, Akwa Ibom State, through Kaiama and Port Harcourt in Bayelsa and Rivers
State.
7. To establish a
peoples Moni bank.
8. To institutionalize
the giving of soft loans of up to 1million naira to small traders, artisans and
commercial drivers.
9. To increase the
beneficiaries of trader Moni, market Moni and farmer Moni from 2.3 million to
10million.
10. To create more room for inclusion in government by achieving
35% in female appointments.
11. To give more access to youths as aides of cabinet members
and through opportunities for appointments in board and agencies.
12. To introduce special mentoring programme in governance with
young graduates working with ministers and other appointees.
13. To reinterpret the education curriculum through coding,
robotics, animations and design thinking.
14. Retraining of all teachers in public primary and secondary
schools to deliver digital literacy.
15. Remodeling and equipping of 10,000 schools per year.
16. To complete the 365 road projects under construction in all
parts of the federation.
17. Provision of infrastructure and rebuilding the economy.
18. To sustaining the anti-insurgency war and curb insecurity.
19. To fight corruption and revamp the economy.
20. To develop 6 industrial Parks in each of the geopolitical
zones.
21. To establish 109 Special Production and Processing Centres
(SPPCs) across each senatorial district of Nigeria.
22. To develop the Special Economic zone to quickly concretize
our made in Nigeria for export (MINE) plan.
23. To expand the social investment program so as to eradicate
poverty.
24. To ensure completion
of Manbilla Dam and Bridge.
25. To ensure the construction of the Makurdi Taraba Borno rail
project.
26. To complete the bridges across the stretch of River Benue in
Ibi local government area.
27. To continue to pursue agricultural policy by ensuring
that fertilisers are made available at all the local government areas across
the country, for easy access by farmers.
28. To resuscitate the Ajaokuta Steel Company.
29. To ensure the completion of the on-going Zungeru Hydro Power
project.
30. To include persons of integrity in the cabinet.
Director of IPC, Mr. Lanre Arogundade, said the
exercise was in line with the tradition of IPC, which in 2011 documented 91
campaign promises of President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP).
According to him, it was also embarked upon pursuant to the
implementation of Component 4b: Support to Media of the
European Union Support to Democratic Governance in Nigeria (EU-SDGN)
Project by IPC over a 52-month period.
Explaining the methodology further, the IPC Director said
the campaign promises of all the presidential candidates that contested the
2019 elections were documented but only that of President Muhammadu Buhari was
being released being the declared winner of the elections.
He however said both President Buhari’s campaign promises
and those of the other candidates would later be uploaded on the IPC websites.
Explaining the rationale for the documentation of the
campaign promises, Mr. Arogundade said the activity was in consonance and
conformity with IPC’s mandate to advance democratic accountability.
“The essence is to ensure that it serves as a tool for
journalists to monitor, track and ask questions about the diverse aspects of
the implementation including using the Freedom of Information Act to such
relevant questions”, Mr. Arogundade stressed.
“Having trained journalists across Nigeria on issue-focused
reporting of elections, we believe they need information like this to follow-up
after the elections”, he added.
According to him, the documented campaign promises will also
be useful for civil society groups working on development and democratic
governance issues as well as various electoral stakeholders.
“The
documentation of the president’s electoral promises from the media reports,
which is by no means exhaustive, is to serve as a major instrument to
proactively engage the Buhari administration on its performance over the next
four years and provide bench marks in seeking democratic accountability,
service delivery and the fulfilment of key campaign promises made by the
president”, he said.
Signed:
SANMI FALOBI
Programme Manager, IPC
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