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Tag: APC

  • APC sets up state harmonisation committees

    APC sets up state harmonisation committees

    The National Interim Executive of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has approved the establishment of State Harmonisation Committees (SHC) for the party, the News Agency of Nigeria reports.

    In a statement issued on Sunday by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the committees would regulate activities of the party at the state level and the Federal Capital Territory.

    The party said the decision to set up the committees followed the adoption of the report of the Aminu Masari Committee by the National Interim Executive in Abuja.

    It said the committee comprised of former presidents and vice presidents, governors and deputy governors, Senators and members of House of Representatives, as well as Speakers and Minority Leaders of State Houses of Assembly who were members of parties that crystallised into the APC.

    Also included as members were serving and past ministers, immediate past National Executive members, gubernatorial candidates and their running mates, who were members of the parties that formed the APC.

    According to the statement, in any state where the party does not have an incumbent governor that was a member of the coalition parties, nine persons, comprising of three elders, three youths and three women selected from the three Senatorial Districts, State Chairmen and the Secretaries of the legacy Parties, members of the National Interim Executive and Federal Commissioners who were members of the party, would be co-opted as members.

     

  • APC to split NNPC, end importation of fuel

    APC to split NNPC, end importation of fuel

    •Foreign missions scramble for APC manifesto

    • Opts for free market economy

    The All Progressives Congress (APC) plans to untangle the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) if elected into power in 2015.

    It also intends to pursue a free market economy policy and devote 10 per cent of the nation’s annual budget to Education.

    Foreign missions, especially those with stake in the oil industry, agriculture, the defence industry and with huge reputation in the promotion of democracy and human rights, are already scrambling for the manifesto of the party.

    The party’s plans are contained in the manifesto which was made available to party leaders and elders on Wednesday.

    APC pledged to ensure the emergence of modern modular refineries products and reduce importation of petroleum products.

    The manifesto says: “APC will make the industry and Nigeria one of the world’s cutting edge degree for clean oil and gas technologies, scientific, mega structure installation drilling, progressing production engineers supported with best services and research facilities.

    “Fully develop the sector’s capacity to absorb more of the nation’s new graduates in the labour market. Make the sector produce more home-grown world class engineers and scientists.

    “Modernise the NNPC and make it the national energy champion. Consider breaking it up into more efficient, commercially driven unit and strip it of its regulatory powers and enable it tap into international capital market.”

    APC also said it would promote economic policy of free market.

    The manifesto adds: “Under current circumstances, economic illusions have literally destroyed all growth in the real sector by their failure or refusal to acknowledge that the country will inevitably collapse under the current bank rate regime.

    “The APC, while supporting private enterprises and free market economy, will take every step to eradicate predatory capitalism.”

    As at press time foreign missions had been scrambling for APC manifesto.

    A source, who spoke in confidence, said: “All these missions have been requesting for the manifesto of APC based on the demand of their home countries.

    “I think they are interested in whether APC would come up with new policies which are better than that of the ruling party. We have given copies to the embassies who have requested. But we know we are providing alternatives in 2015.”

     

  • APC and 2015: PDP is truly exhausted

    APC and 2015: PDP is truly exhausted

    As the months grind on towards the 2015 general elections, the true nature and character of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will begin to unfold. I expect the party to endure, of course, and if democracy is to be preserved, we must hope the party will find ingenious ways to sustain itself and even flourish as a great political party. In other words, I do not wish the party bad, nor do I yearn for its collapse. But there is simply no way it can retain its present character, for its present character is neither progressive, as we understand the term, nor conservative, as its members, leaders and well-wishers dare hope. In reality, and unknown to the many so-called progressives within its ranks, such as the highly adaptable Ebenezer Babatope, the party is unequivocally reactionary.

    There is a way reactionary politics tends to mask ideological differentiation. Radicals, it is well known, can also be reactionary, just as conservatives sometimes do not quite appreciate when they slip from ordinary conservatism to extreme conservatism. What is clear about the PDP today – and we do not need to hate them for their choices or unusual taste – is that its leaders are rigidly opposed to any serious or major shift in the political and economic structures of Nigeria. They want the police to remain as they are, education to limp along ponderously, health and aviation to involve nothing more than cosmetic renovation of buildings, and economy to be simply a case of prudent management of resources in line with World Bank standards.

    Though the presidency of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was not inspiring at all, and its policies showed little imagination and coherence, the presidency of Goodluck Jonathan has proved to be even much worse. Chief Obasanjo’s policies have not only been sustained, its negative tendencies have been exacerbated by the dithering of Dr Jonathan. Chief Obasanjo ripped the party’s innards apart when he imposed imperial rule on the country and party; Dr Jonathan has allowed the injuries to become gangrenous, with horrifying consequences for the ruling party and the country’s laws and constitution. We remember how besotted Chief Obasanjo was to his brain trust and how inexpertly he sometimes redacted their poorly digested and contradictory policies; but Dr Jonathan’s languidness has laid the country prostrate beneath the hurtful policies of his predecessor and opened her up the more to the fiddling of his own even more insular brain trust.

    As we hurtle towards 2015, the country will, therefore, be torn between taking a chance on the newly formed All Progressives Congress (APC) and its eight-point agenda for the country, and resigning itself to the jaded policies and politics of the PDP. To be sure, the APC is not exactly the immaculate progressives of our theoretical fascination. The party comprises clearly discernible elements of both progressivism and conservatism. But if party leaders can find the right chemistry to bond them together, they may not be as immiscible as sceptics fear. The country must remind itself that the last time progressives won an election (in 1993) under the aegis of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), they were certainly not as ideologically coherent as their label misleadingly gave the impression. But they were doubtless the more committed to change, however change is defined, and closer to progressivism on the ideological spectrum than its opponent, the National Republican Convention (NRC).

    Today, the fault lines in Nigerian politics are becoming even more pronounced. The country faces its most trying times ever, and in many ways exhibits a frightening tentativeness in governance as well as in policymaking. By the admission of government, the country loses nearly as much revenue through oil theft as it makes through lawful sales. As a result of the natural lethargy of the Jonathan presidency and its many misguided and contradictory policies in combating crimes, the country is being laid waste by kidnappers and other criminals who would love the roof to collapse on everybody. And in spite of the strong-arm and sometimes vacillating tactics against the ongoing sectarian and socio-economic revolt in the Northeast, we are no nearer peace than when the fight broke out in 2009. In short, there are clearly no major initiatives from the PDP government to tackle these alarming problems other than tinkering at best and helpless indifference at worst. The party is exhausted, its ideas jaded, and its leading lights obviously war-weary and punch-drunk. If it gets another endorsement in 2015, there will still be no initiatives, major or minor, and the party’s leaders will suffer predictable paralysis.

    To win, the PDP will rely on the frustratingly bizarre dynamics of Nigerian politics, which involves a crazy mix of exploitation of ethnicity, religion, age-long prejudices, and fraud. Given the proclivities of the old warhorses being assembled by Dr Jonathan for the battle ahead, the PDP may find itself inexorably drawn to underhand tactics. As it is, the party is itself not idiosyncratically averse to unorthodox tactics in winning elections. The party will also attempt to tar some of the leaders of the APC with the brush of religious fanaticism and political dogmatism. More crucially, the PDP will eagerly exploit the political ambivalence of the Southeast, a region that has perched on the horns of ideological dilemma for so long. Under the Dr Jonathan government, the Southeast has enjoyed a golden age like never before. It is hard to see the region turning its back on Dr Jonathan in 2015. This is more so because when the country faced a choice between a broadly conservative party and a sketchily progressive party in the 1993 presidential election, the Southeast narrowly opted for conservatism, excepting Anambra which the SDP won with over 57 percent of the votes cast.

    The PDP will steer discussions and politics away from issues in the 2015 polls for the simple reason that it fares very badly in that department. It has no concrete ideas to project, and when ideas are nevertheless thrust under its nose, it has neither the patience to grasp them nor the industry to steal and adapt them, nor yet the assiduity to logically take them apart through careful and diligent denigration. Apart from avoiding issues, the PDP will also talk less about its records. Instead, it will dwell more on extenuating reasons for either nonperformance or tardy performance. Dr Jonathan’s aides have denied his government ever attempted to exploit ethnic or religious differences. Not only has it remorselessly done so, its desperation in the coming months will see it embrace the politics of prejudice, perhaps even more shamelessly.

    And here precisely is where the APC stands a good chance. In place of the stultifying policies and administrative paralysis of the PDP, the new party, which is more accurately an amalgam of old parties, has already boldly offered a major and radical shift in the kind of thinking needed to heal, restore and renew the country. I am fascinated by its embrace of the decentralisation of the police – an idea that should have come more than two decades ago – devolution of power to states, independence of anti-corruption and electoral agencies, among a number of other serious policies and issues. I think its determination to create one million jobs annually is far-fetched, and its preparedness to remove qualified executive immunity nugatory. On the whole, the party is at least offering sensible steps and policies to remake the country. Even if Nigerians love punishment and are inured to the policy sterility of the PDP, and mistrust the policy initiatives of the APC, it is still necessary to make a change at the highest level of government in order to strengthen democracy and underscore the power of the electorate to change government at will, whether thoughtfully or whimsically.

    By 2015, the PDP will have been in power for 16 years. Sadly, those 16 years have worsened the plight of the common man, virtually destroyed education, impoverished and alienated the youths, predisposed the country to unremitting instability and criminality, exacerbated corruption, opened the country to insidious foreign military influences and creeping intervention, and shown the world how mediocre Nigeria has become in nearly all areas of life. The truth is that if the country does not change direction in 2015, the chances of its survival, not to talk of its growth and development, will be made much harder, if not clearly impossible. The rot is too much and the stakes too high to ignore how urgently we need to embrace change in the coming elections.

  • APC Vs PDP

    APC Vs PDP

     The common saying that wars are won in the map room cuts no ice with the PDP

    One major difference Nigerians would soon come to see between the All Progressives Congress and the ossifying Peoples Democratic Party is the amount of intellectual rigour the APC will put into the formulation of its policies, programmes and governance, as against the sheer vacuity we have come to know with the PDP in the past 14 years; a situation so reminiscent of the NPN when Awo observed then that while he was busy working at solutions to the country’s problems those in that party were carousing around women of easy virtue. So languid has PDP become that, under Chairman Tukur, its National Executive Committee hardly meets , as and when due, but yet, as if in a payback for a Second Republic favour done him, he went all the way to exhume the octogenarian Umaru Dikko to head the party’s disciplinary committee. It doesn’t get more surreal. Nor can you ever hear of a think tank in connection with the PDP. Rather, what it has in quantum is a rash of reconciliation committees: first, the Tukur Reconciliation Committee; then the Anenih and, now the Seriake Dickson Committee which was launched a while ago with the usual PDP bravura, mirroring uncannily, the presidential flag off of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway project on which nothing else, other than a crippling traffic snafu that takes you four hours to reach Lagos from the Redeemed church camp, has happened since. Nor will the Dickson Committee be the last as jockeying for the presidential and gubernatorial tickets in the party is about to commence in full. We should therefore expect to still see the mother of all Reconciliation Committees. The common saying that wars are won in the map room cuts no ice with the PDP. Otherwise, why would they mess up a whole former President, yank off members of his group even from elective positions only to come back, running helter skelter, seeking rapprochement and asking him to reconcile their warring governors?

    On the contrary, APC leaders, in these few weeks, but much longer in states where they are in charge of governments, have showcased their awareness that governance is no tea party nor is it about ‘family dinners’. The grim faces of the party’s leading lights -Akande, Buhari, Masari and others, as appeared on the front pages of many newspapers on Thursday, 22 August, 2013, at the launch of its manifesto, says it all. The entire week before that, party leaders and the party’s intellectual wing have been holed up in Abuja, working at the details of how to take Nigeria out of what the party calls Nigeria’s ‘ paralysis of 14 years’. Through some hard-headed interrogation, the party was able to flesh up its 8-point Agenda of: (1) War against corruption (2) Food security (3) Accelerated power supply (4) Integrated transport network (5) Free education (6) Devolution of power (7) Accelerated economic growth and, (8) Affordable health care,into what has been publicly announced to Nigerians as its Manifesto.

    Nigerians are well aware of the score card of the PDP on each of the issues contained in that Agenda. Therefore, none needs be reminded about how the EFCC has all along been shackled in the performance of its duties under the supervision of an Attorney-General who must give prior approval to any case it intends to bring against those it has investigated and who, in most cases, have links to the ruling party. We have also seen how anti-corruption agencies, especially the EFCC, have again regressed into tools against the political opposition as is currently the case with the EFCC in Rivers State where like attack dogs, it is going ferociously after state officials in the wake of Wike’s promise to make life unbearable for the state governor. Corruption, under the PDP, has manifested in every aspect of our national life: in pension scams which ensure that some of our senior citizens die on queues waiting for their pension payments, in oil and gas, the mainstay of the nation’s economy where massive scams and oil thefts are the order of the day in spite of huge oil security contracts to sons of the soil; in the federation account being deliberately, massively shortchanged, in a single minister allegedly running up multi billion naira air travel bill, with no higher official of state able to rein her in; in diminishing power generation and distribution in spite of lies of hoping to become one of the world’s topmost 20 economies in year 2020; in increasing poverty and an unemployment rate that has certainty become a time bomb since majority of the victims, being university graduates, actually need no further lessons in how to make Molotov cocktails to make life more horrible for all of us.

    Indeed, the PDP is too consumed with its own internal headache to think of solutions to these multifarious problems facing the country. Granted that it belatedly declared emergency in some states where Boko Haram had already established over lordship in certain areas and flew its flag, it was no doubt the equivalent of bolting the door too late. Such is the state of our insecurity today that poor Oyo State traders have twice been slaughtered in the north. You will not but wonder what constitutes the PDP’s manifesto which, of course, must have been written on the most expensive paper and published in glossy fashion since ‘it is the largest party in Africa’. You would almost think size is the issue, the way they bandy that about.

    Operating from the background that Nigeria is already “trapped in a vicious cycle of political crises, social upheavals and economic under-development, and has, in fact, become, not only one of the most unstable countries in the world, but regrettably, one of the poorest despite its huge human and material resource endowments, the APC, after some serious brainstorming, has come up with a party manifesto. In the words of the Interim National Chairman of the party, Chief Bisi Akande, the following are the issues the APC would eagerly devote its all to as a way of getting Nigeria out of its ‘near permanent trauma’:

    It shall vigorously pursue the expansion of electricity generation and distribution of up to 40,000 megawatts in 4-8 years as power is the centre-point of the development process which, if inefficient, impacts negatively on any economy. Concerning corruption, the party says it will fight it by granting independence to the anti corruption agencies and repeal all laws inhibiting their performance. It promises to embark on public sensitisation campaigns against corruption and to encourage whistle blowers in the anti-graft vanguard. Special anti-corruption courts will be established and remove immunity from prosecution for elected officers in criminal cases just as it will prevent abuse of executive, legislative and public offices through greater accountability, transparency and strict enforcement of anti-corruption laws.

    On the much needed restructuring of the country, an APC Federal Government will initiate action to amend the constitution with a view to devolving powers, duties and responsibilities to states and local governments in order to entrench true Federalism and the Federal Spirit. Regarding national security and defence, the party says it will decentralise the police and expand its local content to include community policing.

    It promises to urgently address capacity building of law enforcement agents in terms of quantity and quality and to establish a well-trained, adequately funded and fully equipped, serious crime squad, to combat terrorism, kidnapping, armed robbery, militancy, ethno-religious and communal clashes nationwide. It will also push for more support in the security and economic stability of the sub-region (ECOWAS) and AU as a whole and maintain a strong, close and frank relationship with the international community. It will also secure our borders, which are currently too porous for effective control. For this purpose, it will establish a National Coast Guard to protect Nigeria’s coastal waters.”

    On the economy, it promises to ensure that the Nigerian economy is one of the fastest growing emerging economies in the world. It will embark on vocational training, entrepreneurial, and skills acquisition schemes for graduates along with the creation of small Business Loan Guarantee Scheme to create at least 1million new jobs every year, for the foreseeable future.

    It will create additional middle-class of at least 1 million new home owners in its first year in government and one million annually thereafter, by enacting a national mortgage system that will lend at single digit interest rates for purchase of owner occupier houses.”

    The above, and much more, is what the APC has in store for Nigerians and I urge all Nigerians, including those currently trapped in the clueless party, to come over into the APC and take possession. It is ours and we must rise up and make it a mass movement because it means well for all.

  • Lagos PDP councillor joins APC

    The Councillor in Ward D, Somolu Local Government Area of Lagos State, Mr. AbdulFatai Kasali-Ghazal, has defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

    He announced his defection during a meeting at Agunbiade Primary School, Somolu.

    Kasali-Gazal told The Nation yesterday that he joined the APC because he believes it is the only party that has positive plans for the masses.

    He said: “I joined the APC because I want to be part of the progressive party with the love of the masses at heart.”

    Narrating his experience as a minority among the majority, Kasali-Gazal said: “It has not been easy being an opposition member. I believe that by joining the majority, my ward and the local government would move forward.”

    He was received into the party by the Interim APC Chairman in the council, Alhaji Kolawole Mustapha, who said he was not surprised by the councillor’s action.

    Mustapha said: “I am not surprised by the councillor’s comeback. He was with us during the time of the Alliance for Democracy (AD), Action Congress (AC) and Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) before he defected to the PDP because of some circumstances. Now that he has realised it, his coming back is a great delight to the APC. He is as a loveable man.”

  • APC inaugurated in Edo North

    APC inaugurated in Edo North

    The people of Ekperi in Edo North yesterday inaugurated the All Progressives Congress (APC) and announced the collapse of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) structures.

    The Inauguration Committee Coordinator, Prince Greg Ogiogwa, outlined the background of the events and inauguration of new leaders from Ugbekpe Ekperi Kingdom, Zone 2, which comprises wards 6, 7 and 8, Etsako Central Local Government Area.

    He described the event as a milestone, and hailed the leadership of the umbrella union under which the people articulated their views, the Ekperi Progressive Union.

  • Council tells students to be serious

    The Chairman of Ikoyi/Obalende Local Council Development Area (LCDA) Hon. Adewale Adeniji, has urged students seeking admission into higher institutions to take advantage of the free GCE forms distributed to them to realise their dream.

    He said the council would not fold its arms when potential future leaders suffer for lack of knowledge. He advised them to take their studies serious because this would be the only way they could become what they wanted to be.

    He said: “We cannot keep quiet and watch you drifting backward because it has been our priority to assist students who show determination at academics. We have you in our heart and want to ensure that you make progress academically.

    “This GCE forms will prepare you for the SSCE, so those of you who still have this other examination must utilise the advantage to excel in order to seek admission to higher institutions.”

    Adeniji added that council was not happy with what was going on in the country due to falling standard of education and urged stakeholders to address this development as a matter of urgency.

    “As for the APC, education has been a core value right from our ACN days. This you can see in the states we control because we give our best to it, knowing that it is a key path to development.”

    He stated that the beneficiaries of the GCE forms who were selected from the wards in the council must justify the opportunity offered them by reading harder to excel in the examination.

    “About 100 students from the council were selected though we may extend this gesture to students outside our council in due course but for now we want to take care of those within the council in view of the resources at our disposal.”

    He urged them to shun vices that could smear their reputation and drag the name of their families in the mud. “Ensure you shun cult activities, do not join bad peer group and always study hard at every opportunity open to you because this is the road to success,” he said.

  • All Progressives Congress Leaders Meeting

    All Progressives Congress Leaders Meeting

  • APC to Fed Govt: meet ASUU’s demand without delay

    APC to Fed Govt: meet ASUU’s demand without delay

    The All Progressives Congress (APC) has advised the Federal Government to honour its agreement with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to enable the university teachers end the ongoing strike, which has paralysed academic activities in the nation’s public universities.

    In a statement yesterday in Abuja by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said no government worth its salt would play with education, because it is the path to national development.

    It said ASUU was not making any fresh demand beyond the agreement it reached with the government in 2009, adding: “Agreements are meant to be honoured, and breaching them comes with some consequences.”

    APC noted that the strike has kept students in public universities at home for many weeks, adding that this is a further blow to the country’s education system.

    The progressives’ party said Nigeria’s education system has deteriorated so much that none of the nation’s universities is currently listed among the top 100 universities in the world and only a few Nigerian universities are among the top 100 in Africa.

    It said: “The N87 billion, which ASUU is demanding, represents earned allowances, hence it cannot be renegotiated. In any case, this amount pales into insignificance when placed side by side with the N1 trillion that has been spent on federal legislators in the last eight years; or the frivolity involved in a government minister travelling to China to negotiate a $1 billion loan in a chartered jet (with its attendant costs) and with a retinue of workers who earned generous estacode in hard currency.

    “It is an indication of the kind of priority that this Federal Government attaches to education. While it has refused to meet its side of an agreement it reached with ASUU since 2009, it could pay out N3 trillion in non-existent fuel subsidies to fat cats; spend N10 billion annually to maintain the jets in the presidential fleet and do little or nothing to prevent the stealing of 400,000 barrels of crude oil per day, which translates to $120 million in a month, money that surely ends up in some people’s pockets!

     

  • ‘APC will rule Nigeria in 2015’

    ‘APC will rule Nigeria in 2015’

    The All Progressives Congress (APC) will take over the mantle of leadership in Nigeria in 2015, House of Representatives Deputy Minority Leader Suleiman Kawu Sumaila has said.

    Sumaila spoke yesterday in Ciromawa, Kano State, when he led leaders and supporters of the party to welcome former governor and APC chieftain, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, to the state.

    He said Kano residents were ready for change in 2015 because the people have suffered for too long.

    Sumaila said: “Change is already done in Nigeria with the coming of the APC. As you can see all over the country, Nigerians have responded positively to the emergence of the APC. The cloud is here; very soon, there will be a downpour of change in this country. APC: one Nigeria, one Kano State!

    “We have to thank God Almighty because people have responded to our call. God is intervening in the affairs of Kano State, and its people. This is because we handed over everything to him and, as you can see, he is with us…”