The presidential candidate of African Action Congress (AAC), Omoyele Sowore, has said that he would not run a government of body language if elected into office because he would be involved.
He also promised to light up Nigeria and invest about $10 billion in the power sector by generating thousands of megawatts of electricity.
Asked if he would accept the results of the election if he loses, Sowore said, “if the elections are free and fair, there is no way we will lose.”
The AAC candidate expressed these views on Wednesday night in Abuja during a Town Hall Meeting tagged: “The Candidates”, which featured him and his running mate, Dr. Rabiu Ahmed Rufai.
Rufai regretted that President Muhammadu Buhari turned his back against the about 13.5 million out of school children in the North popularly known as Almajiri.
“We thought he had the best of intentions for them. But Buhari turned his back against them. We will take them off the streets and employ 200,000 teachers. This is possible because there are many qualified unemployed teachers”, he said.
Sowore was reacting to questions on what he would do to Electricity Distribution Companies which have been known for constant problems of irregular generation of light.
He said, “I will light up this country. The oxymoron of power sector is that they don’t want light for the country. What our people need is light and not excuses. Nigerian economy is built around darkness.
“We can’t continue to pamper DISCOS. We will retrieve their licenses. Nigerians gave them licenses. I’m not going to do body language governance. I will be involved and we will withdraw the licenses of electricity distribution companies (DISCOS) which do not perform.
“We are expected to invest about $10 billion to improve electricity and increase mega watts. Power was not privatised, they did the privatisation but didn’t do the deregulation.
“My administration will build Solar power plants in each university. We need leadership in Nigeria, but we don’t have it. We need innovation, we don’t have it. Egypt and Morocco did it and it can also work in Nigeria during our administration. It is a cannibalistic system of power generation that is killing Nigeria. There are a lot of ways to improve our economy.”
He also promised to change the negative narrative in the education and health sectors.
According to him, the AAC government would block leakages of graft and save the country a large chunk of money.
Sowore also threatened that all the companies which have been deducting taxes but not remitting it to government coffers would be dealt with, while the 500,000 ghost workers in the federal civil service would be weeded out.
He said, “We have passed that period when population will become a liability. The thing is that we are not investing in a way that Nigeria will be a prosperous nation. We are going to invest in education and health; we plan to hire 200,000 teachers, and 160,000 health workers.
“There are many companies deducting money from their workers. But they’re not remitting it, they are not paying taxes. If the companies are paying taxes, by now Lagos will be Eldorado. We will block leakages of graft and save money.
“What we have is a living wage, not minimum wage. That’s why we are saying N100,000. That is the beginning of our work term. The federal civil service is over bloated with 500,000 ghost workers.
“We know of this because we have been relating with government and labour unions. Under our government, we are going to purge them with technology using finger prints, while N1.5 trillion to be injected to the economy. The more money we make the more states will get.”
He also clarified the insinuation that he was going to legalise marijuana in Nigeria, saying the drug is medicinal.
“There is marijuana everywhere, cannabis is a medicinal plant. The NDLEA is burning and destroying many of it every time. But Canada is in need of it for positive use. Marijuana is medicinal. But I’ve never taken marijuana, I’ve never smoked before”, he stated.
The AAC candidate also frowned at the N14 million monthly perks been pocketed by an average Senator in Nigeria, and threatened to stop it using legitimate means.
“It takes 38 years for an average worker earning N30,000 minimum wage to make the N14 million earned by a Senator in one month. There is no way we can accept an illegality. They are not supposed to take more than N1 million per month. We have a court to challenge it and if we can’t challenge them, we will drop them”, he stated.
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