by James Sambo

General Muhammad Buahri has vowed to fulfil these pledges if elected as president of Nigeria next year.

He revealed this in his acceptance letter hours ago.

• We will govern Nigeria honestly, in accordance with the Constitution.
• We will strive to secure the country and efficiently manage the economy.
• We will strive to attack poverty through broadly-shared economic growth and attacking corruption through impartial application of the law.
• We will tolerate no religious, regional, ethnic or gender bias in our government.
• We will return Nigeria to a position of international respect through patriotic foreign policy.
• We will choose the best Nigerians for the right jobs. Our government will be committed to the cause of the common man.
• Whether you are a Christian from Bayelsa State or a Muslim from Katsina State, you are first and foremost a Nigerian in my eyes. I shall treat you equally as my people, my national family, my brothers and sisters. There can be no genuine love of our country without loving all its people in our diversity.
• We shall institute just policies that afford people the dignity of work and pay them a living wage for their sweat and toil. We intend to do this by instituting a national industrial policy, coupled with a national employment directive, that together shall revive and expand our manufacturing sector, creating jobs for our urban population and decreasing our reliance on expensive foreign imports.
• We shall implement a national infrastructure master plan that will provide construction and related jobs across the land. Furthermore, by improving our transportation infrastructure through road, rail and port construction we expand the outer bounds of economic growth as no economy can grow beyond the capacity of its infrastructure.
• Agriculture remains the backbone of the economy. Our government, when elected, will establish an agricultural policy that provides farmers a dignified living through improved inputs, improved extension services, access to credit and price support mechanisms.
• On corruption, the government will enhance EFCC’s powers to investigate independently. Moreover, we intend to plug the holes in NNPC accounting. There will no longer be two sets of books, one for public consumption and another for insiders who profit from this slick fraud. In an APC government, the public will know how much NNPC makes and where all the money goes.
• No longer shall illegal flows of massive sums leave these shores to finance other economies. While our people languish in poverty, we effectively give financial aid to nations that is not justified. I am sick of this. It must stop. The money saved will finance jobs, health care and the provision of social safety net for the needy, weak and vulnerable of our land.
• We will be a compassionate government, for out of compassion arises the truest forms of wealth and progress a society can attain. We shall open the door to tertiary education to excellent students who otherwise could not afford it. Pregnant and poor women and children shall be entitled to basic health care.

Sola