In the book Antigone by Sophocles, the Greek author writes: No other touchstone can test the heart of man, the temper of his mind and spirit until he be tried in the practice of authority and rule. For my part, I have always held the view, and hold it still, that a King whose lips are sealed by fear and unwilling to seek advice is damned. And no less damned is he who puts a friend above his country; I have no good word for him. As God above is my witness who sees all, when I see any danger threatening my people, whatever it may be, I shall declare it. No man who is his country’s enemy shall call himself my friend. Of this I am sure. Our country is our life; only when she rides safely have we any friends at all.
I stand before you today drawing inspiration from the father of our faith, father of the two major faiths and forces on earth today, father Abraham. In that spirit, I hereby declare, North or South, East or West, Muslim or Christian, we all belong to a single brotherhood, the brotherhood of humanity. Nigeria is our country and we all owe a duty to our country to make sure that Nigeria rides well for it is only when Nigeria rides that we ride.In recent years and in recent months, our countrymen have taken up arms against the fatherland. Our country hurts. If our country hurts anywhere, our country hurts everywhere.
In order to confront the specter of insecurity in our land, Nigeria must build a brand new security architecture with tools of the 21st century to confront the challenges of the 21st century. To our men and women in uniform, I salute you. Happy days are coming.
We come from a long history of proud people and great achievers; Oba Ewuare the great (Ogidigan) Uthman Dan Fodio, Queen Amina of Zazzau, Oba Akitoye of Lagos who abolished slavery, was overthrown by the cabal of his day who wanted the trade to continue but was restored to power by the British, King Nana of Itsekiri land, King Jaja of Opobo. The NRI kingdom of the Igbos whilst espousing the concept of one God “Chukwu Okike” built an empire not of sword or gunpowder but of commerce and knowledge which in its day rivaled the Egyptian civilization. We endured a civil war and remained a united nation. We went through the perils of Maitatsine and the Niger Delta insurgency and we remained united. Let the word go forth therefore to friend or foe (JFK) that we will prevail over the insurgency in the North East and we shall remain united. Nigeria is strong. Nigeria is one and indivisible.
My parents sojourned to Lagos over 74 years ago and eventually settled in Palmgrove, Shomolu, Lagos, where I was born. I was nurtured in great Catholic institutions of Holy Cross primary school, Benin City, Annunciation Catholic College, Irrua, Edo College, Benin City and the prestigious University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos. Indeed, there was a country. Growing up was pure joy as we played for miles away from home only coming back home at meal times.
As a student, on October 1st 1978, I started my first business, the O’meekey Burger at the Lagoon front of the University of Lagos. It grew to become O’meekey Rendezvous. Since then, for most of 36 years I have been an employer of labor, employing hundreds of Nigerians through the years. In essence, I have been a problem solver having always to find creative ways to solve problems in a bid to keep my business alive in an ever shifting policy environment with all its attendant infrastructural challenges.
As Nigeria continues the journey of nation building as all nations on earth must do to build a country that works for its peoples; to the children of this country, I say, there is a promise and a hope for you. We will make the necessary investment to ensure Free and qualitative education from Kindergarten to SS3 in every community across the land to ensure that no child is left behind. No child should go to school without a computer, no child should go to school without shoes, no child should travel more than half a mile to attend school, no child should go to school hungry and no child should return from school hungry. We will restore the dignity and prestige of teachers. We will restore the past glory of our Teacher Training Institutes so that we can have well trained teachers who are well paid to teach our children the things they did not know yesterday and to build the gadgets we will need tomorrow (Margaret Mead)
To the youth of this country, I have a NEW DEAL for you. When you pass JAMB, you will take your admission letter to an Education bank which I will establish to get an education loan to attend any higher institution of your choice and you will have 20 years post graduation to pay it back. It is absolutely imperative that this happens very quickly as our young men now enter universities hoping they will figure out a way to get through school while our young girls have already figured it out. This is sad and it must not stand.
The unemployment situation in the country is a national security issue. We will stem this tide by making the right investment in agriculture which has the longest value chain for job creation. We will make agriculture youth friendly by building agricultural cities complete with modern amenities and internet in collaboration with Telecoms companies. We will move all the amenities you enjoy in the city to these new communities and we will give Agric a swagger. Agriculture has a very long value chain and is most suitable for mass job creation. Thailand for example cultivates 9.3 million hectares of land for rice alone andthey have cured unemployment which now stands at 0.062 percent. Nigeria has 83 million hectares of land, almost double the size of Thailand. If Thailand can cure unemployment, so can we. Each hectare cultivated for rice can provide 15 jobs down the value chain from land preparation, to planting, weeding, harvesting, loading, milling, polishing, bagging, transportation, warehousing, banking, etc. I have a plan to cultivate 3 million hectares across 26 rice producing states over a 4-year period and create over 45 million jobs for our teeming youth population.
We import 95% of the sugar we consume in this country, whereas, all we need to do is cultivate 250,000 hectares of sugarcane to become sugar sufficient and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs for our people.
Nigeria which used to be a leading exporter of Cocoa now produces a mere 200,000 tonnes annually versus Ivory Coast which produces over 3 Million tonnes. We must get back on the top. This time we will add value by making chocolates for export.
In recent years, the United Arab Emirates and several countries in the Gulf Region have been touring the world in search of land to grow food for exclusive export to their country. We will go out and get their business. Nigeria will not only become self sufficient in food production under my administration, we will also become net exporters of food.
We spend $15 Billion every year to import Rice, Wheat, Sugar and Fish all of which we can grow and produce here. We can save $15Billion used to import food yearly and gain foreign exchange by becoming a net exporter instead. This way, we will have money to fund education and build local infrastructure.
As you all may already be aware, the United States which used to be the biggest customer for our oil did not buy a drop of oil from Nigeria in the month of September. They have discovered Shale oil, enough to last 400 years. This portends danger to our current mono-product economy and this is why it is now very important, more than at any time before in our history to get it right in 2015. A government that could not manage 15 years of prosperity cannot be trusted to manage adversity.
We currently spend close to $17 Billion yearly on subsidies to import petrol at N147 only to sell at N97. This is prodigal economics and this trend must be reversed. We will deregulate the Oil Industry completely and encourage the proliferation of small refineries to meet our local demand. We will help the illegal refineries become legal by helping them build capacity and helping them to develop the right tools to do a better job. When we deregulate, petrol price is likely to fall below N97 and we can save $17Billion that is currently being spent on subsidy. For 22 years, Nigeria has been importing fuel. The twin brothers of APC and PDP have been in power for 15 of those years and they could not come together in a bi-partisan effort, for the love of this nation to reverse this trend. We need to send them home!
Think about it this way, every time we import something, we are creating jobs for people in other countries and helping them to grow while our factories close down here in Nigeria and our boys and girls roam the streets. This must not stand.
Revitalization of Ajaokuta and all the Steel rolling Mills to launch Nigeria into the industrial age will be a cornerstone of my administration. This will put Nigeria in a position to build Ships, Cars, Armored Tanks, Caterpillars, Helicopters and Planes.
Ajaokuta can employ about 2 million people when completed. For every steel job, 3 more jobs will be created in other sectors. For example, every car has 33,000 individual parts. We can easily become the spare parts capital of the world and start to export car parts to the world. Let us get Nigeria working again.
To the business community, I say, you have no better friend. I have been a business man all my adult life. I know your pain. I have walked in your shoes for 36 years. I will open up the economy in unprecedented ways by pursuing an aggressive nationalist economic policy tending towards preserving existing jobs and creating millions of new jobs. Your time has come to take the Bull by the horns and-- Rule your World (Glo). It will be a cornerstone of my administration to pursue a policy of Naira appreciation that will among other things result in single digit interest loans as there is a direct correlation between the strength of a nation’s currency and the happiness/satisfaction quotient of its people.
To senior citizens, your sacrifice will not be in vain. We will establish a Social Security Administration to take care of you in your twilight years. You will not be homeless. You will not be hungry. You will not be turned back from hospital for lack of money. We are on the cusp of entering a new Nigeria, a Nigeria that works for all of us and not just for the few.
Nigeria’s population of 170 million people is about 1.7% of the world’s population but we contribute 15% to maternal mortality. Worldwide, over 800 women die daily at childbirth, 120 of those come from Nigeria. This figure is unacceptable and must be reversed. We will build well equipped Primary Health Care centers in every local government across the country to bring healthcare to the doorsteps of our beautiful mothers, wives and daughters. It is estimated also that two out of every 25 women will die of breast cancer disease every year in Nigeria. Awareness is the key and catching it early makes it possible to get a cure. We must build cancer screening centers in every market across the country for early detection. We must protect our women.
If we did not have 1MW of electricity 15 years ago, when the party in power took over, we have had 15 years to grow the power sector and we have failed. The solution to our power problems lie in localization. If I live in Surulere, I do not need power transmitted to me from Afam Power station. I need a company to come to Surulere and generate 10MW to serve Surulere. Let them build a local grid and run cables to my home. In 2000, Germany came up with a policy that they wanted to generate 50% of their energy needs from Solar by 2020. They exceeded that target this year already as Germany now generates 210,000MW from Solar and 40,000MW from Wind sources. All the government did was to create a basket of incentives for the private sector.
On electricity, whilst we appeared to have made some progress through privatization, what we need is a great leap forward. The Electricity Act of 2005 must be repealed for us to get 24-hour electricity in our homes. According to the law, all power generated must be sold to Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading (NBET) which is a government agency.
The NBET in turn gives the power to the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), another government agency which in turn gives the power to the Distribution companies (DISCOS) before the power gets to you in your home. We need to uproot all the middlemen and get the power company come to your neighborhood, generate power and run their cables to your home.
For many years, we have been told that the future belongs to the youth. However, what we find is that the same set of people have been in power for 54 years. Clearly, the older generation has refused to hand over the baton of power. Their tired old method of dividing us and turning brother against brother has failed. We must stand united and seize the baton from them to continue the marathon race of building a great nation. In Nigeria, old soldiers never die and they never go away. We need to thank them for their service to the nation and send them into retirement in 2015.
This is your chance. You must seize the moment. I stand here today to represent you. Your dreams and aspirations are not futile. Nigeria is a land of plenty but like the Ryhme of the Ancient Mariner---there is water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink. You have the power to change the rules of the game in 2015. We have a daily cycle in which we struggle to make a living but we have a four year cycle to change our leaders if we do not like the direction in which they are leading us.
Finally, I want to ask:
Are we better off now than we were 4 years ago?
Is electricity better now than it was four years ago?
Are there more jobs now than there were four years ago?
Are our hospitals better equipped now than they were four years ago?
Are we safer now than we were four years ago?
If the answer is NO, then the time has come and the time is now when we must all join hands together from the four winds of this country, male and female, young and old to build a great society that works for all of us and not just for the few. For 15 years, we have had foisted on us across the landscape, whether it be APC or PDP a government by godfathers of the few by the few for the few. This must not stand. When Abraham Lincoln stood at Gettysburg in the heat of the American Civil war, he had you in mind and he had me in mind when he declared thus: That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom—and that Government of the people by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth. We must build a society where every child has an equal opportunity to be educated; no child goes to bed hungry; where every man and every woman who needs a job can find one; the sick do not go untreated for lack of money; where senior citizens are provided for; where the nation gives value to human life and everyone has the right to the pursuit of happiness. This is my promise and you can take this to the bank. I AM HERE TO SERVE. When you get inside that polling booth, think of your old age, think of your children, think of our hospitals, think about electricity, think about our schools, think about our roads, think about jobs for your children AND THEN FINALLY, think about what somebody may be doing to your daughter because she needs to pay school fees. We must get it right this time.
VOTE MICHAEL OVIENMHADAFOR PRESIDENT 2015. UPN EVERYWHERE.
With your help, with your co-operation, I will work tirelessly day and night to take this country from zero to greatness in a few short years. Can we get it right this time? #YESWECANNIGERIA. God bless you and may God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.