Buhari: we’ll deliver 20,000mw in four years

The All Progressives Congress (APC) yesterday
unfolded its power agenda should it presidential
candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, be elected.
The party plans to generate at least 20,000
megawatts (mw) of electricity in four years to
surpass Nigeria’s consumption level of around 15,
000mw.
In a statement, the party’s Presidential Campaign
Organisation (APCPCO) expressed dismay that the
Federal Government under President Goodluck
Jonathan had only added 1.400mw to the national
grid in four years.
The statement by Mallam Garba Shehu, the
spokesman of the campaign, quoted Gen. Buhari
as saying that while he will not run a witch hunt
government, he will not hesitate to deal decisively
with cases of impunity and corruption. No probe of
any government official, he added.
The statement also quoted Gen. Buhari as saying
he is passionately concerned about the sorry
conditions of our armed forces today who, despite
huge budgetary allocations, have failed to
effectively deal with manifest security threats,
including the Boko Haram terrorism.
“What he said at every given opportunity is that he
is keenly interested in knowing what has gone
wrong, if any, with the army that he knew. When
he has access to them as Commander-in-Chief, he
will like to hear from his commanders what
problems they are dealing with so that they can be
solved,” Shehu said.
“In a democracy such as ours, all institutions of
government, including the armed forces, are
accountable. No country can achieve results in its
counter-terrorism efforts when there is no
transparency in the management of huge resources
for the purpose. He (Gen. Buhari) will reinvigorate
the armed forces and restore their rapidly
evaporating morale,” he said.
The APC Campaign Organisation accused the PDP
of wasting billions of naira on non existent power,
managing to add a yearly average of 87 megawatts
of electricity, showing a massive failure to
substantially raise generation and distribution of
electric power despite promises and cash infusion
of between $16 billion and $20 billion.
Shehu said “nearly 16 years of PDP administration
gave this country a miserly addition of 1,400 Mega
Watts against the expenditure of more than $16
billion. That translates to 18.5 MW per annum”.
He noted that “this abysmal power production and
distribution, with its attendant socio-economic
implications, is the most irresponsible thing a
government can do to its people.
It explained that the PDP has shown an “appalling
lack of capacity to deal with just any problem
confronting this country and the lack of vision and
commitment to dealing with electricity supply was
just one of the myriads of the others begging for
attention.”
“The only conclusion to draw from this is that the
PDP is more interested in feathering the nest of
importers of generators than in the wellbeing of
Nigerian citizens and their businesses.”
The organisation accused President Jonathan of
massive corruption in the country’s agricultural
sector, saying “President Jonathan has failed
woefully in the agricultural sector, and all the self-
praise of the administration on agriculture is
simply a ruse”.
It maintained that whereas President Jonathan had
promised in 2010 to make Nigeria self-sufficient in
rice and wheat production by 2015, “the grim
reality on the ground today is that Nigeria emerged
as the world’s highest importer of rice in 2015, and
a whopping $11 billion is spent annually by
Nigeria to import rice, wheat, sugar and fish.”
The statement added that according to the former
Acting Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Dr.
Sarah Alade, Nigeria as at 2014 spends $4 billion
on rice importation – that is about N600 billion
annually on the importation of 2.1 million metric
tonnes of milled rice.
“This is after the Federal Government had
approached the China Exim Bank for a loan of $1.2
billion for the financing of 100 large-scale rice
processing plants with a total capacity of 2.1
million metric tonnes.
“The troubling truth today is that Nigeria is nothing
close to self-sufficiency in rice production and
what we have at hand is a close web of corruption
where government cronies stumble over each other
to get import licences for rice.”
“According to the Minister of Agriculture and Rural
Development, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, Nigeria’s
wheat consumption as at year 2000 was about two
million metric tonnes. But, by 2010, wheat
importation to the country had risen to four million
metric tonnes and Nigeria spends N635 billion
annually on wheat importation.
“Five years into the Jonathan administration,
Nigeria spends even more than we did in 2010 to
import wheat; yet the government continues to
brandish false achievements in the agricultural
sector – a situation that is completely at variance
with what President Jonathan promised Nigerians
in 2010, saying that his government would make
Nigeria save N635 billion annually on rice and
wheat importation.”
The statement also faulted the government’s claim
that local farmers now have unhindered access to
fertiliser through the Growth Enhancement Scheme
and described as “excessively labourious and
technically difficult for the farmers to work
through” are two bags of fertilizer throughout the
entire farming season, “and government has not
come out in one instance to tell Nigerians how
much it receives as grants on fertiliser distribution
to farmers from donor agencies.
“The government will want to give us the
impression that fertiliser is being given to farmers
free of charge. But we know that what subsists is a
50 per cent subsidy per bag of fertiliser. Our
farmers are being shortchanged under this so-
called e-wallet arrangement because of lack of
transparency.
“We may be looking at another subsidy scam over
fertilizer unless the Jonathan administration comes
out clean to tell us how much it has received as
grants over fertiliser and how it comes about the
50 per cent subsidy per bag of fertilizer.”
While dismissing President Jonathan’s claims of
achievement in the agricultural sector, the
organisation said that “throughout the periods
preceding the Jonathan’s administration, the
contribution of agriculture to the Gross Domestic
Product (GDP) was at 7 per cent, while under the
so-called transformation agenda of President
Jonathan, agriculture’s contribution to the GDP has
been consistent at 5 per cent – an all time low.
“In any case, food commodities are items Nigerians
buy on a daily basis. If the Jonathan administration
was sincere with the statistics it reels out on
agriculture, why would the government buy pages
of newspaper advertorials and TV commercials to
force bitter falsehood of its achievements down the
throats of Nigerians? The Jonathan administration
has failed woefully in its agricultural policies and
the facts are self-evident out there at those food
stalls in our markets.
“In 2015, Nigerians know they spend far more to
buy food than they did in 2010. That reality, in
itself, is President Jonathan’s scorecard in
agriculture.”