The African National Congress (ANC) has proposed a monthly payment of N100,000 to fresh graduates as part of its proposed policy to address crises in the country if it clinches presidential power in 2023.
The group led by the renowned economist, Pat Utomi, will be fielding candidates on the platform of the African National Congress, ADC.
Speaking during a news briefing today, April 8, Utomi wanted attention focused on policy differentials that will differentiate the group from the two biggest political parties in the country.
“Nigerians, frustrated by the failings of the APC and PDP and anxious to see the back of both parties, which they realized do not resemble political parties, keep asking about what they have come to call the Third Force.”
According to Utomi, central to the modus operandi of the group’s policy is a center-left people’s platform that emphasizes human solidarity and the universal brotherhood of man and production-focused manufacturing and strategic value chain focus initiatives.
He broke it down into key parts that will form the basis for the party’s government if it clinches power.
He said there will be a “massive trimming of the excess fat, graft, and inefficiency of the current operating mode that would save millions of dollars every week,” in what centres around fiscal policy.
Secondly, he identified honesty in service which requires “placing honest people of merit at the centre of all initiatives with accountability levers that are made public for the public to double up with monitoring and evaluation departments and civil society monitors.”
Thirdly, a creation of a reward system that will compensate performance, which he said requires “ramping up compensation based on clearly stated performance goals.”
He said that there will be a reduction on “reliance on revenues to develop infrastructure but turning to self-financing projects and attracting new streams of income from assets registers and assets that are formally listed in stock exchanges around the world.”
According to Utomi, “Of particular importance is an audacious low-hanging fruit of a conditional cash transfer scheme that will enable us from day one to put all University and polytechnics graduates without work, after NYSC, on a N100,000 a month on a Green Wall Project whose financing will come from abroad and savings from reduced graft in the system.”
He explained that this green ecosystem revitalization army will be at work between 8am and noon, saving the planet and from noon to 4pm a re-skilling initiative that will equip them with vocational skills that will both make them self-employable or fit into skills required in the industrial parks based on Factor endowments of the six zones of the federation from which value chains into global markets are projected.
The development of infrastructure forms out of this cluster of industrial parks will piggyback on market that can bump up a hearty prosperity paradox for Nigeria, he further explained.
“Our Works and engineering shadow teams have also properly suggested that as the best of the best from around the world enter to provide self-financing infrastructure Nigerian companies which will also be growing from some smaller play closed access projects will be required to be privately arranged learning partners.
“In effect every global firm will have a percentage of its stake with a JV with a Nigerian firm. This will quickly ramp up local capacity without a local content program that is bureaucratic and subjects to corruption,” he stated.
Utomi was critical of the way the All Progressives Congress organised its just concluded National Convention. He expressed distaste at the emergence of Mr Abdullahi Adamu through a process he described as lacking competitiveness.
He pointed out that the previous chairmen of both PDP and APC, Messrs Uche Secondus and Adams Oshiomole had been summarily shoved aside without due process in the contravention of the rule book play pattern in both parties. All this in the face of longstanding criticism of the absence of internal democracy in the parties, he said.
He lamented that Nigerian political parties continue to be run as private business estate of those who “own and fund them”, pointing out that that is why there continue to be questionable as instruments for the advance of the common good.
According to Utomi, the long-drawn painstaking efforts to construct an alternative political track is to avoid the errors of the APC and PDP and socialize interests into clear values and ethics of the party and train all on the basic policy planks from the vision and grand and human development ideas of the platform party of the Third Force.
“The additional Factor which partly made this process briefing necessary is the switching of candidate selection process for political parties from those in hot pursuit of positions who sell their properties to purchase forms for party office to one in which the communities approach people whose character, competence and track record suggests our growth prospects and approach them to sacrifice to serve.
“We are therefore calling on Faith groups, community leaders Alumni associations to seek out the members of their community and bring them forward with suggested position they should contest.
“In this college of reformers, a new politics and the new Nigeria that puts the people of Nigeria first, our approach is for his problem solving issues and values to be the focus and not big men, many of who are poor examples of integrity and merit, we seek to build. This is just as we seek elite consensus and collegial leadership as our approach rather than to proclaim Messiahs.”
Utomi drew attention to “how our country of great promise has been crippled by politics of big men, big corruption, and disregard for the people,” reminding that “the purpose of the alternative track is to return politics to the domain of simple men filled with love like our founding fathers, Sir Ahmadu Bello, Dr. Michael Okpara, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Aminu Kano, and Tafawa Balewa.
“We are convinced that the labels of the heroes of a struggle past and present like the Bala Usmans, Gani Fawehinmis, Chidi Ubanis, Olisa Agbokobas, Ayo Obes, Femi Falanas, Gambo Sawabas, and Margaret Ekpos will cement the desperate desire of our people for a new beginning ensure that Nigeria will rise up again.”
