All Progressives Congress VS New Nigeria Peoples Party
In the first part of the “What are the leading candidates promising Nigerians” report, Dataphyte examined the plans of the presidential candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party (LP) across insecurity, economy, education, unemployment, and poverty, as stated in their manifestos.
In this final part of the two part series, we examine the plans of the two other leading candidates — Bola Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP).
Our selection of these five issues — insecurity, economy, education, unemployment, and poverty, is based on the result of a survey published by ANAP foundation on September 15, 2022, which identified these issues as the top five primary reasons many voters are inclined to exercise their franchise in the forthcoming election.
Insecurity
Nigeria is facing serious security threats — the conflict between cattle herders and farmers, which has morphed into widespread terrorism in the Northwest of the country, the presence of the Shia Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) in the North-central, the Niger Delta Vigilante (NDA) and the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) in the South-East, Boko Haram, or Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) insurgency in the North-East, and kidnapping in South-West are some major security challenges.
Although several measures have been taken by successive governments to roll back the various security threats bedeviling the country, Nigeria still ranks as one of the most insecure places in the world.
The candidate of the APC rightly acknowledges that the protection of lives and properties is the fundamental responsibility of the government. Although he didn’t state any quantitative commitment with regard to security, he promises to tackle the country’s security challenges by creating Anti-Terrorist Battalions; as a response to tackling terrorists, kidnappers, and bandits terrorising the country. Part of his security plans is to upgrade tactical communications and transportation of the military to give them greater communication and mobility advantage over criminals, bandits, and terrorists.
He also promises to upgrade weapon systems and improve local arms production; improve salaries and general welfare of security services; provide economic and social assistance to communities impacted by the security crisis and revitalise Forest Guard with a mandate to monitor, identify, and track the use of forests by any violent or criminal groups.
Tinubu promises to expand the national database and other such assets for security purposes. He also promises to reposition the Police to enable the force to deliver its primary duty of maintaining law and order through crime fighting and prevention. One of the action points he promises to undertake is to free police personnel from the role of protecting VIPs.
Similarly, the candidate of the NNPP recognised all the security threats bedeviling the country, and he believes increasing the number of the country’s security personnel is one of the ways to tackle the security challenges. To this end, he promises to increase the number of personnel of the Nigerian Armed Forces (Army, Airforce, and Navy) from its estimated 215,000-250,000 to 1 million. This would translate to the recruitment of a minimum of 750,000 persons into the Armed Forces.
Likewise, he promises to increase the size of the Nigerian Police to one million active service men and women from the estimated 230,000 personnel he quoted in his manifesto. Although his figure varies from the estimate of the INTERPOL — 350,000, Kwankwaso’s target is to make the police-to-citizen ratio 1:220, which is higher than the United Nations (UN) recommended minimum of 1:450.
Similar to the plan of the APC candidate, Kwankwaso hopes to introduce Forest Guards, as well as Coastal Guards and Military border Guards, to secure all access points into the country and combat illegal immigration, drug trafficking, arms smuggling, and cross-border crimes.
Part of the security plans of the NNPP’s candidate is also to use the instrument of dialogue in resolving the country’s security challenges. According to him, at the initial stage, his administration would be open to dialogue with all aggrieved groups in the country, which includes the Niger-Delta Agitators, Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Boko Haram, Farmers/Herders, etc., to listen to their grievances and address any genuine claim that they have. However, he noted that his administration will not relent on its commitment to ensuring the safety and security of the country and its citizens.
Economy
Another important point to consider is the economic plans of the candidates of the APC and NNPP.
As of the end of 2021, data shows that Nigeria has a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $440.79 billion. Although this is an increase from its 2020 figure ($432.29 billion), it is nevertheless lower than it was in 2015 at $486.8 billion when President Buhari took over.
On GDP, the APC candidate hopes to grow the GDP to $780.9 billion by 2027 based on the 10% growth of the World Bank data.
APC candidate promises to limit Nigeria’s foreign currency-denominated debts to essential expenditures that cannot be adequately addressed by either naira-denominated expenditures or debt obligations. He believes doing this will help guard against the country’s galloping inflation trend, which as of November, was 21.47%.
On his part, Mr Kwankwaso highlighted several issues he considers wrong with the economy and promised to solve them. One of his plans is to actively diversify the economy and increase the GDP contribution from the non-oil sector.
He is also promising to reduce the size of the Federal government’s recurrent budget/expenditure, which has consistently accounted for a bulk of Nigeria’s annual budget. This is alongside his plan to increase revenue from the non-oil sector in order to bring down Nigeria’s high budget deficit.
Another key point to highlight under his economic plan is inflation. According to him, his administration will work with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to achieve a single-digit controlled inflation rate. It is important to state that Nigeria’s inflation has recently been on an upward trend, hitting 21.47% in November.
Kwankwaso also promised to improve the Nigerian business environment to boost the FDI flow to the country, particularly in the manufacturing area. According to the latest ease of business ranking released by the World Bank, Nigeria ranks 131 out of 190 economies in the world.
The candidate of the NNPP raised concerns about the country’s high debt profile and promised that his administration will pursue prudent national debt management policy and strategy. Apart from this, he didn’t state anything about reducing the country’s current public debt of N44.6 trillion as of the third quarter of 2022.
Education
The Nigerian educational sector is plagued with numerous challenges. The incessant strikes by tertiary institutions, lack of dependable infrastructural facilities, inadequate budgetary allocation, and the high number of out-of-school children are notable challenges in the educational system.
Dataphyte’s review of the manifestos of the candidates of the APC and NNPP shows that they are fully aware of these issues and made commitments to solving them if elected into office.
Although the candidate of the APC did not state a number, he promises to prioritise solving the growing problem of out-of-school children in Nigeria, which according to a new report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), is currently 20 million.
Regarding infrastructure, he stated that his administration would invest in educational institutions and provide adequate resources to improve the educational environment. Adopting a new curriculum, introducing history subjects, indigenous languages, and new accreditation requirements for teachers are some of the policies he promised to pursue at the primary and secondary schools.
At the tertiary level, one of the key promises of the APC candidate, as stated in his manifesto, is to institute a pilot student loan regime similar to the student loan board established by the Lagos and Kaduna state governments. To address the lack of funding, he promises to establish a special education fund that will be responsible for funding university education through selling bonds.
On the part of the candidate of the NNPP, he noted that in the first four years of his administration, the 20 million out-of-school children in Nigeria would be enrolled in school. He also commits to eradicating illiteracy in Nigeria. Currently, the illiteracy rate in Nigeria is estimated at 31%.
He also promised to provide adequate funding to the education sector. It is instructive to note that, apart from the drop in 2017, 2019, and 2020, the educational budgetary allocation has been increasing yearly since 2015. However, the share of the government’s annual budgetary allocation to the sector has never met the recommended 15 percent to 20 percent by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Kwankwaso also intends to establish technical colleges and vocational centres in each of the 36 states in the country as well as expand places for the training of medical personnel in tertiary education institutions to reduce the manpower gap in the healthcare sector, which has been badly hit in recent times owing to the increasing emigration of medical doctors from the country.
Another key promise of Kwankwaso’s manifesto is his plan to make examinations such as the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), National Examination Council (NECO), and Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) free for every Nigerian child. He also hopes to extend the JAMB result’s validity period from one year to four years.
Unemployment
Since the fourth quarter of 2014, Nigeria’s unemployment rate has been steadily increasing, reaching an all-time high of 33.3% in 2020. At its current 33.3% unemployment rate, Nigeria has the second-highest unemployment rate on the global list.
One of the promises the Buhari-led government sold to Nigerians, as noted in 2017 in the Economy Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP), is to tackle unemployment. Buhari planned to reduce unemployment to 11.23% in 2020. On the contrary, he has supervised the country’s worst unemployment rate.
It is, therefore, not surprising that Nigerians have identified rising unemployment as a top election issue.
On unemployment, Tinubu promised to tackle unemployment by creating one million new jobs in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector within his first 24 months in office. In addition, he plans to cut the youth unemployment rate in the country by half within four years of his administration.
Youth unemployment in Nigeria currently stands at 54.87%, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, in Q4 2020.
The candidate of NNPP is promising to tackle the high unemployment rate, particularly youth unemployment, which is pegged at 54.87%. He vowed to end youth unemployment by creating a number of jobs in specific sectors. For instance, he targets to create over two million jobs in the Armed Forces, Police, and other security agencies. He plans to create more than one million and over 2 million jobs in the housing and agriculture sector annually.
He is promising over three million job opportunities in the transportation and power sector. In the education and health sector, he also promised to create hundreds of thousands of jobs in each sector.
Poverty
Despite the fact that Nigeria is richly endowed, poverty remains high and has persisted despite efforts by successive governments to reduce the high poverty rate. In 2018, Nigeria became the world’s poverty capital, with around 87 million people living in extreme poverty.
With the latest National Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) report released by the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in November 2022, the figure is higher now, as the report revealed 133 million Nigerians, representing 63% of the country’s population, are multidimensionally poor.
Although the NBS report came after the candidates of the APC and NNPP published their manifestos, they recognized this problem and promised to tackle it if elected, though they are not the first to make this promise. For instance, the Buhari administration promised to reduce poverty by lifting 100 million people from poverty in 10 years. But the reverse is the case today.
Tinubu, the ruling party candidate, promised to lift Nigerians from poverty if elected in 2023; however, he did not state the number of Nigerians his administration would lift from poverty. Tinubu stated that his administration would expand the Buhari administration’s National Social Investment Program (N-SIP) and empower women to enable them to lift themselves from poverty. He also noted that his administration would provide unconditional income support to the elderly, extremely poor, and disabled persons.
Kwankwaso, on his part, acknowledged the high poverty rate in the country and promised to take initiatives, especially reviewing the current social investment programmes to better position them to combat and defeat poverty.