Tinubu sets Next Level agenda for Buhari

The leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, has given his advice on what President Muhammadu Buhari’s Next Level government should seek to achieve.

Buhari, during the just concluded general election had sought re-election and won on the mantra of Next Level, pledging to take Nigeria to greater progress.

Tinubu, in a speech he delivered at the colloquium held in commemoration of his 67th birthday in Abuja on Thursday, said the promised next level should conform with the global and historic dynamic, where progressive politicians are trying to help the people change things for the better.

The speech read:

“People the world over are questioning the centre-right conservative model that has, with few exceptions, governed the world for the last half century. In one form or another, people are protesting the way things are, and progressive politicians are trying to help the people change things for the better.

“The Next Level must be seen as part of this global and historic dynamic.

“Our pursuit of the Next Level cannot be achieved by blindly following the economic path of other nations. That would be tantamount to racing to live in a building just as its long-term occupants were frantically rushing out, screaming that the edifice was mean and crumbling. If we are smart, we dare not enter.

“Instead, we must construct our Next Level on a progressive ideology and vision that will take our people out of penury, diversify our economy more aggressively, and empower and retrain our youth.

“To be the great nation we purport to be, we must reform and retool our economy according to our definition of what is best for our own people. We cannot assign that duty to anyone else.

“Here, I must ask for a little liberty to amend the fine title of this colloquium: “Work for the people.” We must do more than simply work for the people.

“Government must ‘work for the people in a way that enables them to better work for themselves.’

“We must amend our basic ideas about the economy. We must divorce ourselves from our fixation with GDP rates and similar statistics. These things were initially intended to be indicators, suggestive measurements. However, we have misinterpreted these road maps by treating them as if they were the destination itself.

“This has caused us to distort the organic relationship between the people and the economy.

“This dominant train of thought has made the people servants to the dictates of abstract economic theories. In a more effective system, the economy would be fashioned to serve the concrete needs and legitimate aspirations of the people.

“Our economy must be redefined to be an efficient yet moral social construct with the primary goal of optimizing the long-term welfare of the people through the sustained, productive and full employment of labour, land, capital and natural resources.

“In the current global context, the best translation of laissez faire economics is “let’s stay poor” economics.

“To believe that we are at our best when everyone focuses solely on maximizing their own position is to believe that one hundred hands can clutch at the same naira note but no one will get scratched.

“To pull the nation from poverty, government must play a decisive role. It must at times direct and even develop markets and opportunities. This is nothing novel. I am only restating what the established economies did when they were young and assumed their trajectories toward growth.

“Yet, how do we organize ourselves to meet this task?

“Like no Nigerian government before, I believe the second administration of President Buhari shall dedicate itself to changing the very structure of our economy for the better.

“The single most important sector for the government’s focus is infrastructure. The most important of our infrastructural demands is power. This has been the greatest discovery of humanity in the last thousand years.”

Speaking on the power sector, Tinubu said, “Affordable and reliable power will drive the industrialization that shall provide jobs in our cities and produce needed goods for all our people. In a more poetic rendering, it will take our people out of the dark ages and bring the nation into the light of a better day.

“I believe the second Buhari administration will work to increase electricity generation, transmission and distribution by more than 50 percent within the next 4 years.

“We require serious and bold reforms to achieve this. What is happening to our gas pipelines? Whatever we have to invest now for our future is a task that must be done boldly. The PDP administration shared out generation, distribution and transmission to their friends and cronies without very deep and thoughtful research and evaluation. It has now become pork chops. This privatisation must be revisited. Put experts together for a more constructive reform to improve generation, transmission and distribution by any means necessary. We cannot afford to be too legalistic about this.

“Also, we should push to end the practice of billing people for electricity they never received. This practice is a vestige of the past that should not accompany us into the future. A person should be charged accurately and only for the power that they use.”

He also spoke on infrastructure, noting that government should continue to aggressively implement its national infrastructure plan.

“We must commit ourselves to a national highway system linking our major cities and towns, our centres of commerce, with each other. This will save lives, spur commerce, cut costs and bring Nigerians closer together.

“Water catchment and retention systems in strategic locations should also be introduced to end the destructive cycles of flood and drought affecting many areas.

“In working to transform the face of our economy, government must also enact policies that encourage industrialization and modern agricultural practices. We must applaud President Buhari for the historic innovations made in the agricultural sector. We must further encourage him to do even more. Government funded social security for the aged and government backed affordable housing and mortgage facilities are things we must continue to explore in an aggressive manner.

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“In the end, our future is uncertain until we enter it and make of it what we will. We can either let the future happen to us or summon the courage to make the future belong to us as other nations have done.

“I don’t think we really have a choice in the matter. We must take the people to the next level. It is a promise made and thus a promise that must be kept.

“Our goal is nothing less than enabling people to enjoy lives free of penury and lack. We seek to constitute a nation where all have basic sustenance and sufficient food on their tables, a sturdy and sheltering roof over their heads and the fair chance and means to sustain and further enrich their lives as they see fit. Let it be that all may live in social contentment and tranquillity with his neighbour as well as with himself. This is what we mean by the Next Level,” he said.

By Ebere Ndukwu…

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