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After a long wait for the Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi’s manifesto, the much anticipated public declaration of the Obidient policies, aims and programmes hit the space on Sunday. What, then, are the inconsistencies in the policy document that need consideration?
The 72-paged manifesto titled 'It’s POssible: Our Pact with Nigerians’ encapsulated a central government that will focus on securing the country, uniting the nation across ethnic and religious lines alongside transforming the country from an ever-consuming nation-state to a productive economy.
Still, there are loopholes in the policy document that cannot be ignored.
At the AllNews Nigeria politics desk, our core mandate is not to rubber stamp every political issue of national significance but to critique and illuminate them for the public good and the interest of Nigeria.
Therefore, after a robust unbiased look at the policy document, we find out that it promises a fundamental improvement of the country if well implemented but at the same time has vital bleak and punctured outlooks.
On Page 8 of the document, where Peter Obi tried to contextualise the extent of Nigeria’s problems that he is coming to find solutions to, he effectively shifted the goalpost.
He understated the government's failures since 1999 simply because he was part of it.
“Although we made modest gains from 1999 to 2015, the culture of corruption highlighted by plundering of state resources and insensitivity to the suffering of the people continued to define statecraft and resulted in growth without development”, the document reads.
It is worrisome that Peter Obi and the crafters of the document tried hard to forgive him and his running mate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, for the failure of a country which recorded its best economic boom at the time and next to nothing to show for it.
Corruption was part of what brought us to where we are as a nation.
Still, maladministration and other excruciating testaments of bad leadership have brought us to the present unfortunate state.
Because Obi was a member of the presidential economic management team till May 2015, and his running mate was a legislator till the same time, the policy document expertly paints a picture that they were not part of the problem, which is untrue.
On the 14th page of the document (VIII) where the candidate gives his programmes on how to unite the country, his ideas on democratic citizenship are faulty and questionable.
The manifesto reads, “The basic minimum of democratic citizenship is that every Nigerian life is protected by the state. There will be no more impunity. All criminals are equal and will be equally prosecuted and punished. No persecution, no privilege. The same law for the rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless.”
But will there be elective immunity?
The long quote above shows that the architects do not fully grasp the extent of Nigeria’s woes.
"The absolute immunity that elective officials in Nigeria enjoy from civil litigation for official acts undertaken in office supersedes all other minor deficiencies raised in the document.
Combating immunity was never mentioned in the policy document.
When the document mentions that it would ensure transparency and strict adherence to our constitution in matters of governance and the allocation of resources and projects, is it referring to the same constitution that Nigerians have been calling for its abolishment?
It is a widely held view that the primary cause of Nigeria’s problems is its unworkable constitution.
Critics have repeatedly said that the constitution was poorly made and did not need reform but a design of a new one that will live up to the current realities of Nigeria as against its military background.
This point in the document okays its weaknesses and the unwillingness of Peter Obi’s administration to touch it if elected int;o power in 2023.
Peter Obi’s Common Regimentation Emolument Structure Table, alongside other plans regarding how to cut costs and ensure an equitable labour force, could be unrealistic.
It is so because he can’t veto the policy. He can only push for it. It is practically impossible to have such a system in Nigeria where government policies hardly bind private administrations.
The government and its agents only capture a few private enterprises. So, how will the government know whether the policy will be appropriately enforced?
The comparative benefit to hourly rate wage is contestable. According to experts, his idea of introducing an hourly productivity-based minimum rate to displace the existing salary structure has no appealing economic advantage.
On Page 20 (I), the manifesto says Nigeria is the least competitive economy in Africa. This is false because the country is above Zambia, Zimbabwe, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Gambia, Burkina Faso, Benin, Angola and many others in the 2022 ranking.
Also, according to the World Economic Forum(WEF), Global Economic Index on its global competitiveness report Nigeria was 16th in Africa and 116th in the world in 2019.
This is not to say that the country has performed well enough but that Nigeria is the least in Africa in a sheer show of emotional politics.
Not only that, on Page 21(X), the manifesto says, “It has been established that Nigeria is among the top 10 countries vulnerable to climate change. This is another false claim far from the truth.
According to concernusa.org, the top ten countries ravaged by climate change are Afgjamostam, Bangladesh, Chad, Haiti, Kenya, Malawi, Niger, Pakistan, Somalia and Sudan.
Nigeria is not even among the countries in focus by the Global Climate Risk Index, which had the likes of Japan, Philippines, Germany, Madagascar, India, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Rwanda, Canada and Fiji.
Where, then, did Peter Obi and the engineer of this policy document get their facts from?
The critical area in the document about how Peter Obi wants to restructure the polity through effective legal and institutional reforms to entrench the rule of law and aggressively fight corruption is a marvellous but unyielding idea.
It is so because it is a welcome development that he wants to reduce the cost of governance and establish an efficient civil service.
Still, he needed to see the reason for having an effective local government administration.
Any responsible government should know that a critical backdrop in Nigeria’s politicking today is the ineffectiveness of local government administration and the exploitation of the state assemblies across the country.
That the policy document has no plans to tackle these menaces brings more suspicion than happiness.
This section of the manifesto details how the government under Peter Obi will leapfrog Nigeria into the 4th industrial revolution by applying scientific and technological innovation to create a digital economy.
Nigeria still needs to empty the keynotes of the second industrial revolution successfully.
With unconvincing infrastructure plaguing the country since the fourth republic, it is ridiculous to state that the administration would not achieve this plan because of where it is today.
How do we jump from the 2nd Industrial Revolution to the 4th?
Peter Obi says a curriculum overhaul is on top of his mind. But scholars say it is advisable for the country to refine and rejig the system instead of a total overhaul put forward by the frontier of the Obidient movement.
"Why do we overhaul our curriculum and stall the academic progress of learners in the country till the process is completed?
"We don't need that. We have to substitute the system with modern ones", a professional teacher told our correspondent.
"What we need as a nation is an optimisation, not an overhaul", another school principal in Oyo State shared when contacted.
Probably Obi does not know that the problem we have in the country in the sports sector is more than what a state league can contain.
Even in Africa, we do not have standard national leagues that can contest. A state league approach is a shallow approach to the sporting debacle.
Meanwhile, this idea is already in existence in some states in Nigeria at present.
What new change does the government hope to infuse into the sector if voted into power in 2023?
Though the manifesto has notable positives, like reducing the load on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the luggage on the exclusive list, among others, it has many faults that the principle of brevity targetted in this piece would prevent us from enlisting.
At the same time, the problem of Nigeria overpowers mere manifestos and the presentation of wordy policy documents.
The real deal is performance, performance and performance.
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