Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has promised to deal aggressively with insecurity in the country, considering its impact on the economy.
Obi made the statement at the LCCI economic forum on Monday, saying if the security situation can be handled, farmers will be back to the farms, which will quickly reduce the price of food.
“We have an expansive land in the north. I say often that the greatest physical asset we have today is the vast uncultivated land in the north, which needs to be cultivated, and invested in. A state like Niger state has no reason talking about statutory allocation with its high expanse of land. They have enough to feed Nigeria and export,” Obi stated.
“When you handle insecurity, you can put people back to farms and invest on the productive assets of our country.
“When you talk about assets, it’s not only NNPC and Ajaokuta, land is the major asset that has to be invested in. We will not allow our land to lie waste, we will invest on it and it will be productive,” he said.
On how to go about handling insecurity, the presidential candidate said he will overhaul the entire security architecture of the country and put in place a multi-level policing structure at the federal and state levels, providing modern gadgets and vehicles.
Speaking the issues of electricity supply, Obi said the government has privatised distribution and generation, leaving the critical link between this two, which is transmission.
“For me, the first thing I will so is to liberalism transmission. It’s critical. We can support the existing companies involved in power to ensure dedicated gas supply, gas to power, ensure that generation, distribution and transmission are properly aligned, have clear certainty of policy and regulatory environment for them to operate.
“We will support access to funding deal with the tax incentives, deal with issue of embedded power and renewable energy. The issues of power will be an emergency to deal with by all means possible to ensure we have power,” he added.
On how to access resources to deal with the issues on ground, Obi said his government will involve the private sector. “Government does not need to be entirely involved,” he stated.
He said next in his order of priority in his first 100 days in office will be to deal with the issues of human capital, by tackling education, adding that “our human capital is low, the more you invest in education, the better our economy. We will invest in education, health and start pulling people out of poverty. These are orders of priority of what we will do.
“On the issues of debt, there is nothing wrong with borrowing; every country of the world borrows money, especially the countries we use as examples. Some of them owe more than 80 percent of their GDP like America and China owes 60 percent of their GDP. Japan owes 200 percent of their GDP and others. The difference is that if you borrow for consumption you are in trouble, if you borrow for investment your economy will grow. The reason why things are not working here is that we borrow for consumption.
“We throw away the money. So debt is a component of development, but it must be used efficiently and effectively for a purpose that brings value. You borrow money and then throw it away that is why we have problem servicing our debt in the first place.
“If it was invested, it would have been used to service the debt. Under my watch, we will borrow for investment, we will not borrow for consumption,” Obi stated.
He said his government will cut the cost of governance, remove physical recklessly and “we will not borrow the much we have borrowed today.”
On the ports, the candidate said: “I’m a trader, I know what to do with that. The president knows. I assure you that dealing with trade- importation and export will be seamless. Remember I’m trying to drive export, that is what we are doing.
“I’ve made comparisms with Nigeria and over 30 countries and Ive come to conclusion that Nigeria’s problem though daunting and difficult is solvable. All we need to have is leadership that is committed.
“My appeal is that 2023 election will not be based on ethnicity. Nigerians are suffering in all part of the country. We want to move from government-led to private led.
“So don’t vote for peter obi, because I’m an Igbo man, I’m not contesting based on religion or ethnicity, or vote for me because it’s my turn.Nigeria is nobody’s turn. It is the turn of Nigerian youths to take back their country.
“Don’t vote because of connection, we don’t believe what they say about their structure of corruption, criminality, looting; that is what we want to dismantle. In 2023, vote for a character you can trust. Anambra is there go and check their resources and show me where their money is missing. I never owed or borrowed workers pensions or gratuities. I left in each bank in Nigeria 60 million dollars and 12 million naira. I do not have any land allocated to me or any member of my family. I was in charge. That is what I want to do with Nigeria. In this election, vote for competence, credibility and character.”
