Mr. President Elect ,
Let this season of Change be known as the season which did more for civil rights than the last fifty five years of our history ; as the change which was won through voting and mass appeal ; as the change which declared all-out war on human poverty and unemployment in Nigeria; as the change which finally recognized the health needs of all our older citizens; as the change which will reform our tangled transportation and transit policies; as the change which will achieve the most effective, efficient foreign aid program ever; and as the change which will helped to build more homes, more schools, more libraries, and more hospitals than any single administration in the history of our country Nigeria.
Unfortunately, many Nigerians live on the outskirts of hope–some because of their poverty, and some because of their religion , and all too many because of both. Our task is to help replace their despair with opportunity.
This administration today, here and now, must declares unconditional war on poverty in Nigeria.
It will not be a short or easy struggle ; this administration with his promises must not rest until the war is won. The most populous black nation on earth can afford to win it. We cannot afford to lose it. Ten thousand Naira invested in salvaging an unemployable youth today can return N400,000 or more in his lifetime.
Poverty is a national problem, requiring improved national organization and support. But this attack, to be effective, must also be organized at the State and the local level and must be supported and directed by State , local and Federal efforts.
For the war against poverty will not be won in Abuja . It must be won on the field, in every private home, in every public office, from the rocky sand of Aso Rock.
This administration should propose programs that will emphasize the cooperative approach to help one-fifth of all Nigerian families with incomes too small to even meet their basic needs.
The chief weapons should pinpoint attack on a better schools, and better health, and better homes, and better training, and better job opportunities to help more Nigerians, especially young Nigerians, escape from squalor and misery and unemployment rolls where other citizens help to carry them.
Very often a lack of jobs and money is not the cause of poverty, but the symptom. The cause may lie deeper in our failure to give our fellow citizens a fair chance to develop their own capacities, in a lack of education and training, in a lack of medical care and housing, in a lack of decent communities in which to live and bring up their children.
But whatever the cause, the joint Federal-local effort must pursue poverty, pursue it wherever it exists–in city slums and small towns, in sharecropper shacks or in refugee camps, on Lagos getty waterside Reservations, among Alumonjiris as well as displaced Nigerians, among the young as well as the aged, in the boom towns and in the depressed areas.
The aim is not only to relieve the symptom of poverty, but to cure it and, above all, to prevent it.
The president elect must expand in small but in progression of success across the zones and states of redevelopment .
The president elect must enact youth employment programs to put jobless, aimless, hopeless youngsters to work on useful projects.
The president elect should ensure that distribution of food to the needy must be a priority through a broader food stamp program.
The incoming administration of Gen .Buhari must create a National Service Corps to help the economically handicapped of Nigeria as the Peace Corps
The President elect should extend the coverage of minimum wage laws to more than 2 million workers now lacking this basic protection of purchasing power.
He must, by including special school aid funds as part of his educational program, improve the quality of teaching, training, and counseling in our hardest hit areas.
This administration must build more libraries in every area and more hospitals and nursing homes under the child Act law, and train more nurses to staff them.
The president elect must provide hospital emergency scheme for our older citizens, financed by every worker and federal government , contributing no more than N1000 a month during the employee’s working career to protect him in his old age in a dignified manner without cost to the Treasury, against the devastating hardship of prolonged or repeated illness.
The president should revised housing and urban renewal program, give more help to those displaced by slum clearance, provide more housing for our poor and our elderly, and seek as our ultimate goal in our free enterprise system a decent home for every Nigerian family.
The incoming government should obtain more modern mass transit within our communities as well as low-cost transportation between them.
These programs are obviously not for the poor or the underprivileged alone. Every Nigerian will benefit by the emergency scheme which will cover the hospital costs of their aged parents. Every Nigerian community will benefit from the construction or modernization of schools, libraries, hospitals, and nursing homes, from the training of more nurses and from the improvement of urban renewal in public transit. And every individual Nigerian taxpayer and every corporate taxpayer will benefit from the earliest possible passage of the pending tax bill from both the new investment it will bring and the new jobs that it will create.
That tax bill has been thoroughly discussed over the years. Now we need action. The new budget clearly allows it. Our taxpayers surely deserve it. Our economy strongly demands it. And every month of delay dilutes its benefits in 2014, for consumption, for investment, and for employment.
For until the bill is signed, its investment incentives cannot be deemed certain, and the withholding rate cannot be reduced-and the most damaging and devastating thing you can do to any businessman in Nigeria is to keep him in doubt and to keep him guessing on what our tax policy is. And I advise that we should reduce to 14 percent instead of 15 percent our withholding rate.
It is expedient and political correct to note that Nigerians have made their stance on principle and this administration should ensure that all of these increased opportunities–in employment, in education, in housing, and in every field-must be open to all Nigerians. As far as the writ of Federal law will run, we must abolish not some, but all ethnical discrimination. For this is not merely an economic issue, or a social, political, or international issue. It is a moral issue, and it must be met by the passage this change factor
All members of the public should have equal access to facilities open to the public. All members of the public should be equally eligible for Federal benefits that are financed by the public. All members of the public should have an equal chance to vote for public officials and to send their children to good public schools and to contribute their talents to the public good.
Today, Nigerians of all ethnical stand side by side in Abuja and in Lagos, in Port-harcour, in Kano. They fought for change and vote in their millions to have this government in place , let the hope of average Nigerians be rekindle and their aspiration glitters in your doings as the president of Nigeria.
For our ultimate goal is a world without war, a world made safe for diversity, in which all men, goods, and ideas can freely move across every border and every boundary.
This government must advance in quashing Boko Haram effectively in a non partisans way , but as patriots and bringing our girls back ( 200 chilbok girls kidnapped )
First, we must maintain–and increase defence budget –that margin of military safety and superiority to obtain through progressive years of steadily increase in both the quality and quantity of strategic, conventional, and anti-guerilla forces. In 2015 we should be better prepared than ever before to defend the cause of freedom, whether it is threatened by outright aggression or by the infiltration practiced by Boko haram and Niger-Delta militant rebels, who ship arms and men across states and international borders to foment insurrection.
Second, The president should take new steps–and make new proposals at the Senate–toward the control and the eventual abolition of Child marriage. Even in the absence of agreement, the president elect must discourage child pregnancy and genital mutilations
Third, we must increase food production as an instrument of peace–making it available by sale or trade or loan or donation-to hungry people throughout the states which tell us of their needs and accept proper conditions of distribution.
Fourth, the government must assure the nation on emergence of technology knowhow which must focus on infrastructure development , telecommunication and more on power sector.
Fifth, Nigeria must expand his world trade diplomacy , the nation relationship with IMF, World Bank and other international financial agencies
Sixth, we must continue, through such measures as the interest equalization tax, as well as the cooperation of other nations, our recent progress toward balancing our international accounts.
This administration must and will preserve the present oil value of the Naira.
Seventh, he must make sure Nigerians become better neighbours in wherever state they find themselves and better nation in West Africa while working with the councils of the Africa Union , with a stronger Alliance for Progress, and with all the men and women of this hemisphere who really believe in liberty and justice for all.
Eighth, we must strengthen the ability of free nations everywhere to develop their independence and raise their standard of living, and thereby frustrate those who prey on poverty and chaos. To do this, the rich must help the poor–and we must do our part. We must achieve a more rigorous administration of our development assistance, with larger roles for private investors, for other industrialized nations, and for international agencies and for the recipient nations themselves.
Ninth, we must strengthen our trans sahara partnerships, maintain our alliances and make the United Nations a more effective instrument for national independence and international order.
Tenth, and finally, we must develop with our allies new means of bridging the gap between the East and the West and the North, facing danger boldly wherever danger exists, but being equally bold in our search for new agreements which can enlarge the hopes of all, while violating the interests of none.
In short, I would say to this president must be constantly prepared for the worst, and constantly acting for the best. He must be strong enough to win any war, and we must be wise enough to prevent one.
He should neither act as aggressors nor tolerate acts of aggression.
Mr President . In these last 3 sorrowful years, we have learned anew that nothing is so enduring as faith and change, and nothing is so degrading as hate.This faith was echoed in change and spread across the barriers of ethnic , religion and traditions . indeed , change has come to Nigeria and with faith , enduring, commitment and being resolute , the president Nigerians have being waiting for finally arrived
Please accept my warm congratulations on your victory and my best wishes for your success as you prepare to take up the responsibilities and challenges of your high office.
By : ‘JIDE ADESINA ,EDITOR-IN-CHIEF @ THE AFRIKA MARKET
FRENCH VERSION
Laissez cette saison du changement sera appelée la saison qui a fait plus pour les droits civiques que les dernières cinquante cinqannées de notre histoire ; que le changement qui a été remportépar appel avec droit de vote et de la masse ; que le changementqui déclara la guerre tous azimuts sur la pauvreté et le chômageau Nigéria ; que le changement qui a fini par reconnaître lesbesoins de santé de tous nos concitoyens plus âgés ; que lechangement qui a réformé notre transport emmêlé et lespolitiques de transport en commun ; que le changement qui aréalisé le programme de l’aide étrangère plus efficaces, efficientsjamais ; et que le changement qui a contribué à construire plusde maisons, plus d’écoles, plus de bibliothèques et hôpitaux plusque toute administration unique dans l’histoire de notre pays leNigéria.
