Fighting Corruption
We have to deal with corruption from the point of view of an integrated policy for it to be effective, by removing the root cause of corruption. One of the reasons why people were bribing NITEL official was that you had 400,000 lines to 80 million people. But once you allowed competition in that place and now you have over a hundred million lines and the lines are now even almost for free.
It is the network producers that are trying to induce you with all kinds of packages so that you can buy their own. We eliminated corruption in the telecom sector through competition and policy. Nigeria’s corruption which takes place mostly in the public agencies is as a result of over centralisation. Wherever you have a long queue, people will do anything to jump the queue.
Once you have a system where only one man can sign a piece of paper, he becomes like an emperor. Everybody is lobbying him with money, with language, with sentiment , with religion. But once he is not the only emperor in town who can do the same business, your reduce all those corruptive tendencies around him. So, it is not just only through punishment.
Power Supply
The first thing we need to do for infrastructure generally is that to be able to sustain investment in that sector. Once investors are able to see a pathway to profitability, they will invest. Right now, there are lots of obstacles that have grown on the path of the investor. Some of these obstacles are due to the manifest incompetence in implementing the provisions of the Act.
From a practical point of view, these are some of the things that can be dealt with through executive actions within 90 days and once you remove those obstacles that impede investment by making the right appointments and generating executive orders that can give standard operating procedures as to tenor of applications.
Most importantly too is that we have to decentralize power for Nigeria’s infrastructure to grow. I understand the issues in the power sector and one of the things I will be bringing to the table as the President is my 27 years’ experience in the private sector as an investor that has invested all over the world. I know why investors put money in one country and why they refuse to put money in another country and I can fix that in a matter of months and return Nigeria back to growth and expand the GDP of the economy.
Restructuring
When it comes to restructuring, we should focus on the content. The content is that we need to devolve power. Over centralisation is unworkable. It leads to corruption and inefficiency.
Job Creation
I’ve been creating jobs as a private entrepreneur, locally and globally. So, when I’m in government, I will create jobs. For the past 27 years, I pay salaries. If you see me ride a car, I bought it with my money. I fuel the petrol. I run my energy sources. So, I feel what the ordinary people feel. I have been creating jobs and Nigerians can believe me that I know how to do it.