 Tonight, we take a closer look at APC's Presidential Campaign Manifesto and Consolidation of Bahá'í's Legacy Achievement, and Special Assistant to the President Mohamed Bahá'í on Media and Publicity, Femi Aditionist, says rising insecurity is no longer an issue in Nigeria. This is Plus Politics, I am Mary Anacor. The all-progressive Congress APC presidential candidate Bala Tinibu in his 80-page manifesto unveiled in Abuja, has vowed to end the controversial petrol subsidy gulping trillions of Naira annually, and also to tackle forexed crises hindering the economy if elected president next year. Tinibu said his objectives is to foster the new society based on shared prosperity, tolerance, compassion and unwavering commitment to treating each citizen with equal respect and due regard. In response, the spokesperson of the People's Democratic Party PDB Presidential Campaign Council, Dino Malayi, accused the all-progressive Congress, the APC, and the presidential candidate Tinibu of plagiarising the campaign manifesto and slugging of the late MKU, Abiola. The statement was, however, rejected by the APC's Presidential Campaign Council. While joining us live to discuss this is Assistant Principal Spokesman of the Ruling All-Progressive Congress, APC Presidential Campaign Council, Adjuri Ngalali, it's good to have you join us, Adjuri. Good to be with you, Mary, and thank you for having me. It's an 80-page manifesto with all the controversies surrounding it and all the people who are accusing your party of plagiarising it. Let's start by looking at some of the key areas and why many people would say that it's plagiarised. Would you like to first speak about it? Yeah, I think it's important not to even lend credence to unfounded allegations. You know, it has already been clearly established in the public domain that it was not plagiarised. Independent authorities, publishers have come together to agree that it was not plagiarised. It was just simply a statement. Just like saying that the president has 100 wives, anybody can say that, but we all know that it's falsehood, so there's no need to harp on it. Interesting. Let's start by looking at education. This is something that many Nigerians have spoken of, especially with the strike action that took place for almost eight months, at the end, as you're staying at home, asking the federal government to meet their demands, etc., etc. We also know that there are 20 million-plus children who are out of school as we speak. Before your principal took office, it was about 11, 10 million, roughly, out-of-school children, but now it's more than doubled. What will your manifesto or how will the manifesto address the issue of out-of-school children? Of course, the deficit that we have in terms of schools, teachers, we remember that at the time in Sokoto, the governor of El Rafa had said that teachers had not necessarily been trained up to the level where they should be, hence the level of location that we have. What does the manifesto hope to address in those areas? Thank you very much, Marianne. First and foremost, obviously, as the population grows, you're going to have a situation where some of these troublesome trends are continuing because these kind of social remedies have not been put in place in the states where these cultural factors are more prevalent. There are regions, obviously, where, and I've been very open about this. I believe the president has been very open about this when he addressed the National Economic Council some months ago, that the state governors, particularly in the northern part of the country, have a lot more work to do in clamping down on scenarios where you have a gate man who is earning 15,000 nara or less in a month, but has 12 children that he's not catering for. These are very serious cultural problems that need to be addressed and that factor into the out-of-school problem that we're talking about. Now, with that said, it's also important to understand that when we talk about education, particularly primary education, getting these young kids into school, we're talking about the constitutional prerogative of the state governments. We know that this is not a federal government issue. The presidential campaign manifesto is not for the APC governors that are running. It's for the APC presidential candidate who will be the chief executive officer of the executive branch of the federal government. So the issue now is about how do we, when we're talking about out-of-school children, how do we incentivize, find creative ways of incentivizing states to do the things they should have been doing without the federal government begging them to do them. Of course, we've had in place the UBEX scheme for a long time, Universal Basic Education scheme where we have offered counterpart funding for the provision of primary education facilities and the like. Many states have not even accessed that as we speak, which speaks to the will of some states across party lines, by the way. So look, it's important that we understand who's responsible for what and then in addition to that, though, to answer your question, now that I've clearly shown that this is more of a state issue, is that under the campaign manifesto of His Excellency Asuaji Bola Medtinubu, his plans are very, very clear in terms of what he's trying to bring to the table that's different from what anybody else has ever done, which is first and foremost, he's establishing a special, upon his election in February by the grace of God, he will establish a special presidential committee on education that will be comprised not just of former and current academicians and public sector officials in the education sector, but really for the first time, bringing in captains of industry in the private sector at an elite level, CEOs of major companies across critical labor-intensive sectors in manufacturing and agriculture and construction and the like, bringing them to the table and having them directly inform the reconstruction, as it were, of curricula nationwide and the reason why he's doing that is so that we can more specifically tailor the curriculum that our children will be studying toward the actual needs in the knowledge-based 21st century global economy. So you will not have a situation where people are graduating, they're getting certificates, but then they go through the NYSE and afterwards they have no job. Now we're going to tailor a curriculum to give them the kind of skills they require within these academic institutions so that even if there's no available job in the formal economic sphere, they will now be equipped to be able to even go into their own entrepreneurial, you know, kind of pursue those aspirations. The second thing, which is very important, is there's going to be a major emphasis on vocational education. We want to emphasize in this country that we can no longer look at education as simply a means to a certificate at the end of it. We cannot say to our children that if you don't go to college, because this is the problem we have in the country, is if you don't go to university, you're a failure. If you're not a scientist, a doctor, a lawyer, or this or that, you're a white banker, you're a failure and all of that. That's the mentality of most parents in this country across the country and it's a failed mentality. It's archaic. What we are saying is if you look at the developed economies around the world, what you're seeing is the blue-collar jobs are some of the highest-paying jobs in the world right now, where you have people who go to vocational technical schools, where they learn hands-on skills, whether it's plumbing, whether it's robotics, whether it's design thinking, whether it's software, there's so many aspects to it, what you can get into. So what his Excellency Asiwajubola Metinubu is now saying is that across every state of the Federation, he's going to establish a vocational education center of excellence, where young people irrespective of whether they had gone to secondary school, they will now have access to these institutions where they can be trained in hands-on, blue-collar training curricula that will enable them to be involved in so many different entrepreneurial exercises as they develop their careers and skills. So we have, I think, the ITF have had these vocational training centers over the years. Not quite. We have. We've had a lot of people that are talking about it. No, no, no, not compared, not designed the same way. Your government has been there. Your principle, the person who's running for this office, has also been a friend of this government. You're telling me that these ideas could not have been shared. This government that is in power has come up with all kinds of ideas as to how we can improve the loss of young people. So we're going to wait till 2023 for that to be done by Asiwajubola. No, we have to understand. We cannot explore that now. And money has always been allotted to training people in vocation in ICT. But then something different, you're going to pull a rabbit out of a hat? No, I'm not into theatrics. I'm into developmental conversation. What I'm saying to you right now is that when we talk about the issue of education, what we're trying to look at is say, look, President Mohamed Abu Hari, we're not saying he has not done well. We're not saying that he has not done his best. But we also know that there are several training institutes where corrupt politicians and some officials have done the wrong thing. And they have been taken in by the EFCC. They have had assets recovered from them. And they have gone through prosecution. You cannot put that on the president. The president cannot be the head... I'm coming, please. I would like to... I allow you to land your question. I want to land my answers. So what I'm saying is that he cannot be the head of every institution. There's a reason why you have ministers. There's a reason why you have CEOs of agencies. But when those officials are not doing their jobs well, it's a possibility to ensure that they're either removed, replaced, or if they have done something wrong, they should be... the law should be enforced. And that is what he has done. That's relative to training. But we're not talking about the same type of process. We're talking about a totally different apparatus that takes into account the partnerships required with the state and local governments. It's not just a minister sitting somewhere in an office in Abuja determining who is going to be trained and who's not going to be trained. That's a totally different approach from what we're taking in collaboration with the private sector. Does that mean that the Buhari administration has failed in taking that approach? And that's why Balatini will want to come in? No, absolutely. But this is the kind of myopic thing you want to avoid. The idea that because somebody has a fresh idea, it means that somebody else has failed. No. These are two different men who have two different sets of ideas. President Mohamed al-Buhari brought in place so many different reforms. I mean, we're fixated on education. There's so many issues to look into. But if you look across the board, the various sectors, look at the manifesto. In page five, we talked about security, the security plans, which I'm sure we'll get into. The first thing that was there was praising President Mohamed al-Buhari for the reforms he brought in place in terms of massively arming not just the Air Force but also the Navy with new landing ship tanks, new battleships, the Air Force with new fighter jets, gunships, laden helicopters, drones that we're now manufacturing locally in Nigeria. The Army with new light arms, new locally made mine resistant vehicles, armored personnel carriers. These are things that we were importing 100% before. We're now manufacturing them within this country because of the moves and policies of President Mohamed al-Buhari. So what we're saying is in agriculture, same thing, page 27 of the manifesto, we first gave credit to President Mohamed al-Buhari for putting us in a position where we went from being the largest importer of rice in Africa in 2015 to now today being the largest producer of rice in Africa to giving over $1 trillion to over 3 million farmers nationwide which has allowed us to massively substitute the imports of several food items across value chains. These are things that the point that I'm making to you is for those who have been in the media space attempting to create an impression that because His Excellency is bringing new ideas and kind of new approaches to governance, that that now equates to Mr. President failing. That's an unsensical idea and I think we can be more sophisticated in our thinking to understand that you have a president who has his own history, his own notion of how to tackle problems and then you have a new candidate and that's why we elect new governments. Let's talk about healthcare. It's interesting that in the space of a year plus we've had so much brain drain in the health sector. Again, this might not have been part of the three key things that the Buhari administration campaigned upon but then we're seeing more and more people flee from Nigeria to other parts of the world and I'm wondering, we also see that life expectancy in Nigeria has gradually dropped to its lowest ever and I think it's gotten to 52 or 54 which is really appalling, especially if you leave somewhere in Lagos. What's in your manifesto that's going to address all of this because it's very important, when I was growing up you would, for every kilometer you would see a health post, that's no longer the case. What's the government going to be doing about it? Again, this is another area where it requires a lot of nuanced appreciation of the constitutional configuration around healthcare delivery and service provision is where you have basic healthcare, we know is the bulk of healthcare service delivery in the country and in most countries, we know that that again is a prerogative of the state governments, if they're not making the investments there's really very little any president can do at the federal level because it's a constitutional provision and prerogative of the states but what we can do and what His Excellency Aswajib Bola-Metinubu is promising to do in his manifesto is creating a program of incentivization to counterpart fund states and local governments to construct not just, I think this is probably one of the innovative approaches, is to construct not just brick and mortar primary healthcare centers like we've had in the past but now evolving into some of the mobile primary healthcare service clinics where you can actually move them from location to location where the needs may arise and all of that. The commitment of His Excellency Aswajib Bola-Metinubu is this, that every Nigerian must be within three kilometers of a primary health center whether it is the brick and mortar static addition or whether it is the mobile clinic addition, that is a commitment that he is making to deliver in the manifesto. Secondly, and I think this is very important, he is also putting in place the same counterpart in incentivization mechanism to assist the states to totally reconstruct and refurbish in terms of refinishing general hospitals in every local government area of the federation. He has said that he is going to establish a new tertiary healthcare institution in every state of the federation through that same incentivization mechanism and then finally he said that in every geopolitical zone of this country there is going to be a world class center of excellence where you are going to have essentially all the services under one hub in every geopolitical zone of the federation. His vision is not just to stop, you know, kind of in education we call it brain drain, in healthcare we call it medical tourism. He is not trying to stop the outflow of medical tourism, he is not just trying to stop it, he is trying to not only stop it but also reverse it in such a way that Nigeria would actually be the recipient nation of other countries healthcare service delivery deficits so that instead of a Ghanaian not finding the service in Ghana and going to England they can now come into Nigeria and into these centers of excellence and have ample opportunity to choose which institution they want to pay into. It's good for the Nigerian economy and it's good for the health of the nation and obviously the healthy worker is the most productive worker which has multiplying economic impact on the economy. He has a vision of his excellence in healthcare according to his manifesto and I think it's important for us to specify these things because ultimately that's how Nigerians will hold him to account after he's elected president. Great. I just want to backtrack a little. It's enough for us to talk about these establishing of health centers, state-of-the-art governments do this all the time but when they fall ill they travel including your principal who's gone back and forth. Will he start with himself when it comes to making sure that he reduces medical tourism because he was governor of this state and I mean in the time that he was governor I'm sure he had built a few state-of-the-art and we've never really seen him use those facilities so again this might just be another campaign slogan of oh we're going to make sure that you know the health facilities are good enough and we would not fly out but we see that happen every day including Mr President. I've heard your question or statement or observation what I would just say to that and this is the same observation that was raised to me today at TVC is that look I don't know about every spokesperson I don't know about every official of a government but I speak for myself when I say that I have no problems at all acknowledging where we have not been able to achieve what we hope to achieve in certain sectors and there are other sectors where we have totally outperformed even our initial expectations infrastructure is a major one of course we haven't talked about that yet much but one we talk about healthcare I think there are few things to factor in you have two economic recessions one of them was global right you have a once in a century global pandemic that essentially shut down the world for several months and most economies had not recovered even after two years right major impacts not just on revenues but on how you're going to which which which programs and projects you're going to continue constructing in view of the limited limited resources we all saw the barrel of oil go down to ten dollars per barrel during that time these are things you cannot plan for when you're running for president in 2015 you cannot say in twenty ninety and twenty twenty there will be a historic once in a century pandemic nobody can plan for that so when these things happen you have to you have to address your priorities I think it's fair to say that when it comes to healthcare infrastructure the states when the pandemic happened that are mostly responsible for providing the infrastructure and healthcare that we're talking about really did pinch that part of budgetary provision and focused more on roads and some of the other priority projects that they held that's their prerogative whether it is a good decision or a bad decision is something that we have to talk to our governors about but in terms of the president and him going to travel and all of that I think it's absolutely true that there's still a ways to go but the fact of the matter is we have to start and I believe if you look at Lego state his excellency I see what you bought a metinubu it had created the conditions for this state to be the state where you have state-of-the-art private hospitals that people are coming in from Kenya to come and use look at Reddington and I don't want to be advertising for anybody but if you look at several other there are several hospitals that into the international residents come and and get their healthcare at even even in by the way we should acknowledge that the vice president we should know but we should we should I'm coming we should hold on we there are two things here first of let me address that first of all his excellency the vice president got a very critical like surgery one person well it's one very important he's not running for president is he I'm coming Marian he did he did do it it's unprecedented before he did it of whether you want to acknowledge it or not he did do it then in addition to that it is not for us to determine who where somebody will have their their relationships with their doctors I'm coming please the relationship that present Muhammad has with his personal doctor who is based in London is something that predates his run for the presidency this is something that had gone back decades that's a very convenient excuse no it's not a convenient excuse it's reality there's a difference it's not convenient Marian what you want no no see I'm sorry not to answer you want I'm not asking you I'm not asking you to tell me what I want to hear but you're telling me that your candidate you're interrupting me I'm sorry but you're not sorry because you continue to do it your candidate wants to be my example my example means that you have to start from where you stand please answer my question I will do so if you don't interrupt me when I do so because there's a guest and there's a journalist you're the journalist I'm the guest I'm supposed to be able to talk as the guest look this is how it works all right look you have a decades-long relationship with your doctor before you entered office will you now say that because you ran for president that your doctor who is based in London whose facilities in London that now by by by force by mandate you are now forced to you know the person who has all your sensitive details knows your medical history you should now start afresh with somebody new based on the fact that you are now the president I don't think that that's logical his I see what you bought I met who has a personal relationship with a doctor in the United States that is his personal decision that's not a political decision so if he decides to consult with somebody who does not live in Nigeria that is his prerogative if he's now asking the Nigerian taxpayer to fund that service or to fund the logistics to go and engage in that service then Nigerians have a right to say look that's not right but that is not what is happening so I'm sorry not to not to say oh oh it's unfortunate that the president won't do that I mean but our president whenever he goes I think we're wasting a lot of time on a new shoe that is not important I just need you to answer this and then we'll move on you're saying that the president is using taxpayers monies and us asking that question it's not valid using taxpayer money how is it are you talking about medical treatment abroad who pays for it first and foremost I'm see see no see first and first of all I don't have the details of which which entity pays for I don't know if it's his personal account or if it is his daughter or is I don't know so no no listen listen listen because you raise the question and I'm going to answer you I've answered you about the issue of his medical tourism and all of that that is that's his decision to engage with any doctor that he had had for decades that's his decision what I am saying to you is that that does not now mean that any candidate running for president in the future is mandated to have a new relationship with a doctor he had not had experience with I think you get the logic but I think you're more you know focused on trying to get some entertainment value in the conversation but let's move on to the critical issue let's talk about infrastructure let's talk about I mean your principle Mr. President has always spoken about the fact that he's done really well in terms of infrastructure but let's look at the manifesto of Bola Tinibu and how it's going to build on those gains I'm sorry can you talk about infrastructure generally not specifically from a federal level because we see that every time the higher administration is talking about the gains or its dividends of democracy one of the major aspects is infrastructure how does Bola Tinibu intend to build on those gains oh well I think it's just a very straightforward thing if you look at railways obviously with the work that's been done with the 326 kilometer warrior Takpe rail line obviously the Lagos Bada rail line is not a stranger to you the key now is to continue where President Muhammad Buhari left off and this comes back to the original conversation we were having is this notion that if you want to do something that you must try as much as possible to divorce yourself from the previous person that really is an administratively silly approach what he's going to do is he's going to take the best of what has happened and he's going to make first of all accelerate the reforms and then make whatever adjustments or amendments he needs to make to the other areas I think the other aspect of it is that when you look at the AKK for example that's the first foundation line that's the Ajeu Kuta Kaduna Kano gas pipeline for those who don't know that's going to be the foundation line of the terms Sahara gas pipeline which is going to take Nigerian gas for the first time into western Europe through the Algerian pipeline system Asiwaji Bola Mettinubu has committed to ensuring that that gas is moved out of the Niger Delta and he builds on the AKK through the Sahara so he's intent on making sure that the existing gas pipeline networks and plans that are on ground already that they are implemented to the letter so that's that and then if you look at the plans around NLNG train 7 going into NLNG train 8 to expand our gas production these are all ongoing plans that he is going to continue to build on if you look at aviation already his excellency mr president has put in place five international airports obviously five of which were not in place before 2015 we met them at an average completion percentage of 11 percent we've taken them by the end of his administration would have taken them to completion obviously I think the important thing here is understanding that this election is not between President Muhammad ibn Hari and his excellency Asiwaji Bola Mettinubu the election is not between Bola Tinubu and Jesus Christ or the Prophet Muhammad it's between Asiwaji Bola Mettinubu and Alhaji Atikub Abu Bakr for most intense and purposes I'm sorry to those who are into the labour parties movement but we'll see what happens in the election but we believe that these are the two major forces so what we are saying is we would love for a situation where you would ask questions about what the PDP's record is because the truth is that if you PDP has not held power for the past year no I'm coming please if I land my point well you're telling me what to ask you no I'm saying no I'm saying no I'm not telling you what to ask I said it would be great if you did ask these questions because whether you say they have not been in government for seven years or not they still govern for sixteen years before then and that sixteen years actually matters because they have been in government for 16 years and so did I so what they did or didn't do actually had an impact on the nation that we live in today so no I'm you are the master of interruption but you're asking me questions and I'm going to give you answers no I'm not I have not asked you a question because he thought that the PDP did a great job and then you're here you're asking us as journalists to ask you what the PDP will do wait a second you just said that I asked you a question I did not ask you a question now with what I was saying look is that people that did not even build a single airport not one in 16 years with double the time and double the wealth not a single railway was concluded in those 16 years they cannot name 100 kilometer plus federal expressway that they started and completed in 16 years with double the wealth and double the time not one major gas pipeline artery or one major refinery or one major this or that just name it name it now they cannot that's a major problem so my point in making this statement is not to lambast the PDP I'm just telling the truth I'm not insulting anybody so but what I'm saying is that the point in saying so is that this is who we're running against in the election so what we are saying is that the progressive movement is united whatever president Muhammad has accomplished which is so much across the sectors we are not only owning it we are proud of it and whatever we are going to do on top of that on top of that successful foundation is laid for us we are going to do we're going to accelerate the reforms and we're going to make sure whatever value addition we can make in terms of modification we're going to do that and that is the simple position let's talk about security this is something you and I had your favorite topic on this program we had a tent a tent before we went on and you had you know a lot to say but let's talk about the fact that when your government came in it talked about putting an end to Boko Haram but now we don't have just Boko Haram it's become a hydro-headed monster it's become the bandits it's become the unknown government it's become all kinds of things you know across the Federation I always say if you toss a pen wherever it faces there is some form of crisis or insecurity we saw what happened in Anambra and all the assassination attempts on senators, members of the National Assembly we've also seen what happened in Abuja the security alert that was put out by you know the US and the UK even though the information minister called it to click bait I'd hope that she'd be able to explain to us what that meant then in 2015 Boko Haram was the major issue now we're dealing with many things what exactly will the Asiwaju government be doing because as we speak we're getting ready for an election season also with the flooding there's a lot to you know worry about in terms of how people are going to be safe and good but all that's happened now just hold on all that's happened now things deteriorating to this point does it not make the Jonathan government look like a saint as opposed to what we have now well that's quite a pretty good marketing moment for the Jonathan administration I would just say this if you look at the wide raft of what we face look I was a reporter in this country going to the sites of all these terror attacks I was in Abuja at this day bombing I was in Nyan Nyan when the motor park was exploded by Boko Haram I was in the Catholic church that was exploded on Sunday just on the outskirts of Abuja I was there Banek same thing so I have an idea of what we're talking about when we talk about how bad things were and how things are today I always marvel at the ability of some people to glamorize the things that are wrong in the country for narrow political ends what I've always said is that if you look empirically at what has happened in this country from 2015 to today as against what was happening before then I'll remind you very quickly before I go into what we've done that from 2011 I didn't even mention the UN bombing which was even the most catastrophic is this you had young boys in boarding schools across the north waking up to terrorists entering their rooms with no light they were having their throat slit in the morning you have 80 boys dead on their bunk beds across boarding schools in the north people forget that that was going on you had bombings in markets in Kaduna and Kano and Kebi and Jigawa there was no no state Sokoto no state in the north where you were not every weekend I'm not saying something that happened every month every weekend there was a new bombing of a new market in fact the incumbent president was almost killed in Kaduna by the same groups the entire city of Abuja was a checkpoint you were here I'm sure you were there at that time or at least saw it I was there so the notion that we have not had a single bomb attack in Abuja from 2015 to today knock on wood it continues we have not to the idea that old good luck Jonathan now looks so good I think is almost offensive given the facts then on top of that the Boko Haram that you're talking about controlled about a third of the northeast of this country at the worst point in time at the time we took over they controlled several local governments they were administering taxes and governing over spaces AMIS had been run out of their thrones to IDP camps local government chairman IDP camps that's what was going on Meduguri airport was closed for three years it has been open since 2017 it has not been closed since then now I I situate all of this to say that today Boko Haram controls zero territory in this country the ISWAP faction that we all talk about that was controlled by Abu Musab al-Banawi the commander al-Banawi is now dead under the leadership of this commander and chief the military removed him from the battlefield Abu Bakar Shekhar the original Boko Haram the commander talking the man that you're praising now in public on video he's now dead under this commander and chief you now say that so now he died once and he's fully dead and everybody recognizes that he's dead so not only is he dead the people he was fighting with are dead too so there's really nothing to talk about now I'm talking about Boko Haram now in addition to that you made the very interesting in fact I could see almost glee on your face as you were saying if I spin this pen almost everywhere there's a problem I will correct that notion if you remember you're wrong to state that Banditry was not a problem before Banditry was a major problem under Gulag Johnathan it's just that Boko Haram was such a terrible problem then that nobody talked about the bandits that were kidnapping killing people I'm coming I'm trying to understand why you keep going back to Johnathan no your question no it's because of the people were kidnapped and it took months to get them out when you started I'm sorry but I have to ask this question you're not asking a question you're making a statement why you keep going back to the Johnathan administration when you are our and then you're looking to you to do something you're here to defend the government to help you understand why you keep going back to the Gulag administration and advertising for PDP I'm telling you that did you not make the statement in front of all of our viewers that doesn't Gulag Johnathan look so great by comparison I was almost shocked that you could say that on air but listen to me what I'm saying to you is I'm making sure that you remember the reality instead of this fiction that you're creating for people so now so that's why I needed to make sure that I bring that out so that I can tell you where we've come now I've said Boko Haram out of it north east is a totally different place now you're not having bombings across markets all over the country anymore everybody knows that now the issue of banditry we had a major problem with these herdsmen farmer clashes across the middle belt for several two or three years 2016-2017-2018 we have seen a massive reduction in all the conflicts that we saw in the middle belt nobody's talking about that and Ben we are you seeing the casualties in Nassau hour and Platt to all those places that were very bad are you seeing them no why because we established new forward operating bases new military personnel groupings in all of these various places uniquely equipped and operationally prepared to deal with those threats they're not there anymore I want to remind you of some of these things banditry that we talked about Zampara turned into the hotbed of illegal mining and banditry that they were even linked with previous state governments in Zampara state today nobody even talks about Zampara as a security concern today it's a fact now I'm saying it on national television I'm not afraid of being contradicted Governor Autumn has been on the news every other week I'm almost done with my point I promise you I'm almost done now the issue of banditry the last major attack we had was on the rail line you saw what happened there where they had the attack and it was terrible fortunately for us all of the people released alright and we have thoroughly decimated so many of those elements in the forest along the Abuja Kaduna highway and all of that my point is that it is absolutely true that we have security challenges but if you compare it to what it was where you had people threatening to take over the governance of Nigeria you can't even begin to make that comparison so when we say that we're building on the platform of what President Muhammad do Buhari has accomplished we're not just talking about the massive armament of our military we're not just talking of you know the success against Boko Haram and against bandits and killer herdsmen and all of that we're talking about the fact that generally you can while there's insecurity in the country nobody can make a concrete case now that as we are today today that it's rising today that is not true it had risen to a point and it was rising when you say 2016 2017 2018 if you said it was rising I would have fully agreed with you but we have definitely brought it down significantly and people can see that even on the basis of newspaper reports how many newspaper reports are you getting of these incidents so let's give credit where credit is due we will build on that foundation his excellency in terms of specificity is promising that first of all we're going to establish a forest guard reserve because his excellency believes that we need to really make a bit of a pivot as in the thinking of our armed forces in the sense that yes we have done well to react to some of these challenges right especially with what we inherited but now we need to take more proactive efforts so instead of waiting for bandits to coalesce in the forests for example where they can gather plan and do all the kidnap and hostages taking and killing what we want to do now is have a force that is uniquely equipped and designed to in real time man our forests surveil our forests on ongoing real time basis so that we don't even give these groups a chance to even converge and become a threat to the country that's just one out of several initiatives that his excellency wants to bring in terms of modifications to the successes that present Buhari has put in place I come to my favourite part and that's the last part because my guys are saying we're almost out of time MSME very important everybody wants to know what your former governor will do because he keeps making reference to the way he goes and of course people are asking how is this going to be done at federal level looking at the ranking I'm just going to ask you that because you seem to know what is Nigeria's ranking in terms of the ease of doing business and what has your government what have you done to increase that to create that enabling environment because we're seeing that like you said at the beginning we don't just have to go to school to be doctors and nurses for the entrepreneurial opportunities what has the Buhari government done in terms of ease of doing business raising the stakes and of course how does your candidate intend to improve on that thank you very much I think it's well known in this but I don't want to belabor our successes in the ease of business but of course the World Bank has actually stopped the official ease of doing business rankings they stopped it I think one or two maybe a year ago or so so there's no official ranking anymore but during two out of the last three rankings that came out under the World Bank they named Nigeria as one of the top 10 most improving nations in the world in the ease of business that's something that we're proud of but it didn't come as a result of them liking the president's face it came as a result of them coming into the country and making verifiable, tangible assessments of what it is that we had done so we put in place things like the automation of processes of business registration at the Corporate Affairs Commission moving the process from sometimes 3-4 months and that's usually with bribe and go at the CAC and all of that man-to-man interaction we automated all of that, made it now to where you can register your business name within 48 hours in addition to that, we put in place judicial modifications and interventions where the chief judges of the two major commercial capitals of this country were able to essentially make small claims courts that would expedite the time frames on business-related conflicts legal conflicts between various parties to ensure that wherever there is any kind of a judicial process that it can be shortened for the sake of the ease of business in the country and there are so many other ones but now you ask the question about what is excellence the Ashwajibullah Tinibu will do moving forward one of the major aspects is we're focused on two things, one, rural youth employment urban youth employment the urban youth employment is really going to be a function of two major things one is going to be the industrial policy and the vocation centers because the vocation centers we are anticipating that the vocation centers of excellence that we talk about are going to be the hubs that will actually nurture these young people that will go into impacting the industrial policy the industrial policy essentially creates these these competitive, the local it basically leverages on local competitive advantage of the various geopolitical zones in items that they have, raw products that they can add value to so for example in the north central where you have a lot of solid minerals and in the northwest places like Zampara where you have a lot of solid minerals we want to create major geopolitical zonal hub where we're going to effectively tailor our private sector our collaborations around that particular item so that people can have an opportunity to not just be a part of the primary part of getting the raw commodities out of the ground but also part of the value additive aspect of refining gold and the like we have to go we have to go I wish you could have gone into housing housing was a big one I'll come back there's a lot to unpack Adrian Galali is of course the assistant principal spokesman of the ruling of progressive congress APC presidential campaign council always a pleasure, we hope that you come back and we'll do some more fighting I look forward to the next fight we'll take a short break now when we return we'll be taking a look at the discussion with Tunji Abdulhamid on security in Nigeria, stay with us