The Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi has rolled out the economic blueprint of his administration saying it will pursue a drastic reduction in cost of governance and corruption as well as improve the ease of doing business to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) to jumpstart industrialisation.
Obi stated this in a statement issued by the Obi-Datti media office on Tuesday.
According to the statement, Obi who spoke on the theme, ‘Nigeria diaspora and capacity building’, in Michigan United States, averred that that if elected president, his administration would borrow when it is unavoidable but that such fund would be strictly for regenerative purposes and production.
“We shall pursue a drastic reduction in cost of governance and corruption; Improve ease of doing business to attract FDI to jumpstart industrialisation and when borrowing is unavoidable, it will be strictly for regenerative purposes and production,” he said.
He said he was “to retooling governance and bringing about a secure and united Nigeria and will pursue a production-centre growth for food security and export; effective legal and institutional reforms (rule of law, corruption and government effectiveness); the leapfrogging of Nigeria from oil dependency to the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).
On inflation, he said the first this thing to tackle is food inflation.
“Once we tackle insecurity and farmers return to farms, our food production will go up and inflation will go down through reduced food prices. When you remove subsidy, our fiscal imbalance will reduce and subsequently increase,” he added.
Obi also said his administration would deal “decisively” with the corruption component in the fuel subsidy regime.
“There are two elements of subsidy- the corruption component and the real subsidy component. For the corruption, we will deal with decisively which will reduce the subsidy cost by over 50 per cent. We will support local refining for domestic use and priced strictly in naira. Starting with all government vehicles, we will transit to gas powered cars,” he added.
On power, Obi said: “Even though I am aware that power has been moved from exclusive list to the concurrent list, we will go beyond it; we will aggressively support the private sector to invest in the power chain through a multifaceted approach particularly the transmission infrastructure.
“As we all know, two components of the power sector (generation and distribution) have been privatised and liberalised leaving the most critical component (transmission) in the hands of government which is causing inefficiency and darkness.
“We will, therefore, vigorously pursue the liberalization of the transmission infrastructure in addition to a robust power mix- embedded power and renewable energy.”
On gender balance, Obi said his administration would aim for 35-40 per cent women participation.
“As governor of Anambra State my administration achieved close to a 60-40 gender balance in appointive and elective positions.
“The national target has hovered around 30-35 per cent. We intend to progressively aim for between 35-40 per cent, with aggressive gender mainstreaming action plan and rigid benchmarks.
On corruption, he said: “We will have zero tolerance for corruption; block leakages and cut the cost of governance. Our total commitment to transparency and accountability in government business is the only credible way to achieve limited to zero corruption.
Obi called on diaspora Nigerian not to be weary in contributing capacity building in Nigeria even though the outlook seems bleak, especially with insecurity in the country.
“It will take only one visionary leadership and disruptive thinker for Nigeria to be put back on the right trajectory. I know that with a robust diaspora support we can take back Nigeria.”
