“I have always held the opinion that the PDP cannot afford to fail Nigerians, because the sufferings in the land is positive campaign to our party in 2023. Thanks to APC for mismanaging the country. I equally enjoined Nigerians who are going through excruciating pains and agony foisted on them by APC-led wicked administration to keep their hope alive in the PDP because the storm will soon be over.”

That was the surefooted affirmation by Alhaji Atiku Abubakar GCON, former Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and now the Presidential Candidate of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP, in the 2023 elections, of his preparedness to put Nigeria back on the path of growth and economic recovery after grueling seven years under the All Progressives Congress, APC.

It was not an empty boast. A couple of weeks ago, the Waziri Adamawa had unveiled a carefully prepared manifesto aptly titled, “Pathway To Recovery” in which he enunciated his plan to build institutions to drive economic growth with a trickle-down effect on the people; solve Nigeria’s security challenges, restructure and unify the nation better.

For someone with the benefit of the hindsight, having been in the power loop for eight years between 1999 and 2007 under former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Atiku obviously was not groping in the dark in preparing the Recovery Plan. Aside identifying the problems, he laced the package with vital statistics and provided the solutions. A bird’s eye view:

·       Close to 16 million people are unemployed, over 2 million new entrants join the labour force each year.

·       Unemployment for women and young people is at 33%.

·       70% of unemployed youths are uneducated and unskilled.

·       Nigeria is one of the poorest and most unequal countries in the world, with more than 80 million of the country’s 190 million, or more than 40% of the population living below the poverty line.

·       Nigeria has overtaken India as the country with the largest number of people living in extreme poverty, with an estimated 87 million, or about 50% of the population.

·       The intensity of poverty varies from 38% in South West and South East to 45% in North West.

·       Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo will be home to 40% of the world’s extremely poor people. 

·       Over 90% of freight and passengers in Nigeria are moved by road.

·       The 2005 National Transport Policy (NTP) and 2010 draft National Transport Policy were never considered or adopted due, largely, to poor commitment and lack of capacity.

·       Too many policymakers and regulators – four different ministries: (Ministries of Transport; Aviation; Works; and Agriculture and Rural Development).

·       Poor power supply, yet the average wholesale cost of electricity generation has gone up by over 120% since 2015.

·       A majority of the sector players are in financial distress.

·       Generation capacity is above 11,000MW but actual production consistently averages below 4,000MW and that transmission remains the weak link with 5,000MW capacity untested. 

Atiku’s Recovery Path has offered solutions to these broad issues. It envisions a new, more efficient and sustainable national Entrepreneurship Development and Job Creation Programme that will create about three (3) million employment opportunities for all categories of youth (graduates, early school leavers, the uneducated who are currently not in schools, employment, or training); re-launch the National Open Apprenticeship Program, NOAP, and recruit 100,000 Master Crafts Persons (MCPs) who will train 1,000,000 apprentices in various trades annually; repositioning and streamlining of the activities of existing federal and state government job creation agencies. 

There is also the School To Jobs Pathway aimed at re-positioning the technical colleges and vocational skills acquisition centers to produce skills and competences for innovation and new ideas and products inside enterprises from where future jobs and prosperity will be delivered. 

The manifesto promises to encourage institutional frameworks that will ensure grants, loans, or equity investments in small enterprises either as start-up capital or to scale up innovations; introduce, and actively promote, a Graduate Trainee Program and improve the technical and financial capacity of the Industrial Training Fund, ITF. 

The new government says it will prioritize support to the Medium and Small Enterprises, MSMEs across all the economic sectors as well as facilitate establishment of the SME Venture Capital Fund by the private sector. For the bourgeoning ICT and entertainment sectors, the Atiku administration will aggressively market Nigeria as an outsourcing destination as well as actively promote Nollywood and Kannywood.

To alleviate poverty and boost economic empowerment, Atiku’s Recovery Plan says the solution is beyond direct cash distribution to Nigerians as the APC administration has done so far but by providing skill acquisition opportunities and enterprise development for job and wealth creation; improving citizens’ access to basic infrastructure services – water, sanitation, power, education, and health care; removing all forms of discrimination against the marginalized and vulnerable citizens and enhance their access to education and income generating activities. “Part of the solution is also by implementing pro-poor policies that will enhance their participation in economic activities and improve household income and by working more closely with NGOs, the private sector, and other development partners to mobilize resources for the effective implementation of our empowerment strategy,” it says.

Nigeria’s transportation problems received adequate attention in the recovery plan. The PDP will propose legislation, framework, and regulation overhaul; develop 5,000km of roads by 2025 through public, private partnership, PPP; develop and rehabilitate the connecting road networks across the geopolitical zones. There will be focus on developing transportation around the nation’s agricultural and industrial clusters.

More importantly, it is envisaged that up to 5,000km of modern railways will be built through privatization, PPPs and public investments. Also, existing port facilities will be improved for greater efficiency while there will be conscious and accelerated development of alternative container ports, especially inland dry ports. 

Atiku’s document noted that the power sector has not delivered the promises of development envisaged by the reform programme. Thus, his government would guarantee independence of the National Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, in the discharge of its functions; review the Aggregated Technical, Commercial, and Collection, ATC&C, losses existing in the power networks and extract firm commitments for a revised loss reduction target from the distribution companies; create an environment that would enable distribution companies to recover full costs for power supplied to their consumers; introduce creative solutions towards addressing the huge debt overhang and liquidity challenges in the power industry; ensure enforceability of industry contracts and, upgrade the transmission grid.

The envisaged reforms in the Recovery Pathway are endless, but most notably, they are pointers to better days ahead. From seeking for debt forgiveness or cancellation to relieve Nigeria of foreign debts to banking reforms, purposeful fuel subsidy removal, foreign exchange policy, critical issues in the oil and gas sector, women empowerment and the rising cost of governance, Atiku Abubakar appears on top of the game.

On the fuel subsidy crisis, Atiku said that what the APC is doing “is just a fraud.” He noted how the PDP government between 1999 and 2007 had handled the matters: “I was the chairman for the removal of fuel subsidy committee and I recall how we removed the phase 1 and phase 2 of fuel subsidy. I will continue from where we stopped, remove fuel subsidy totally and channel the subsidy funds back to the economy,” he said at a forum.

Little wonder the Director of Strategic Communications for the PDP Presidential Campaign Council, Basorun Dele Momodu, said that the Recovery Nigeria messaging is a reflection of the current pains that the country is passing through.

His words: “Nigeria, currently is going through hard times. We have taken time to evaluate the challenges facing the country and the plan to rescue and restore Nigeria by the PDP.

“That evaluation gave birth to our Recovery Nigeria messaging, because it includes not just the diagnostics of where we are, but also the prescriptions of the antidotes to the challenges.”

As the nation inches closer to the February 2023 presidential election, and having had a taste of the two parties – APC and PDP, Nigerians, as Atiku noted recently, “should be proud of the records that the PDP offered” by returning the party to power.