When I become president

Some days ago, I was messing around with an app on my phone. The app is called Canva and on it, there are over 50,000 templates for different designs projects like flyers, posters, cards, logos, Facebook posts, Instagram posts, presentations, videos, and lots more.

So I went into the poster section and searched for a template that fit what I wanted to design. I couldn’t find a befitting template to design a political campaign poster because most of the related templates are ready-made with the American flag and their national colour. Apparently, the app is an Australian graphic design platform but I guess Nigeria was not considered when making templates for political posters.

I decided to settle for one template with a green background since I will redesign it to my taste. I started adding and removing, and in the end, I came up with an unprofessional presidential campaign poster of myself.

The message on the poster reads ‘2023, VOTE Israel Ojoko for President, let’s build from the scratch’. A photograph of me wearing a multicolour ankara dress and a native cap made me appear like an upcoming politician.

Back in the days, I had wanted to study political science in the tertiary institution and become a professional politician but my mum, God rest her soul, disagreed with me. Her belief at the time was that politicians don’t live long, they kill each other with charms and hired assassins. She posited that politics is too dirty for her dear son. She vehemently refused, and after months of disagreement, I succumbed to her desire, after all, she is my mother and wanted the best for me. I went on to study mass communication – another course I love – and here I am today, a professional journalist. In any case, things have changed today, I do not need to read political science to become a politician.

When I was done designing my presidential campaign poster, I posted it on my WhatsApp status and it generated some reactions. I went on to post it on my Facebook page and I got reactions too, most of them cheering me on and promising to support my ambition. I jokingly responded by saying I am currently consulting before I announce my final decision.

Then I started pondering, what if truly I want to contest for president, what will I offer? What will I change? Which areas will I touch? How and how much will I improve the lives of the people? How much will a litre of fuel cost? Will medical doctors go on strike during my regime? Will there be inflation in food prices? What about roads, and electricity? Will I be able to change the lacklustre attitude of civil servants to work? How much will be their minimum wage? How will I fight corruption from the scratch? I pondered for a long time before returning to reality.

In the end, I admitted that the job of a president is enormous, but I will just do the little I can.

Because prices of almost everything in Nigeria are determined by the price of fuel, I decided that petroleum products will be a focus if I become president. The country is paying the salaries of hundreds, if not thousands of workers, in the four refineries located in Warri, Kaduna, and Port Harcourt with no revenue being generated from those refineries. It will not be business as usual anymore.

Past administrations have made efforts and put a huge sum of money into bringing these refineries back to full production capacity but there are cankerworms bent on making sure that does not happen. It is simple; what I will do is release funds for the final and complete repair of the refineries, and give a deadline to deliver. According to records, about N1.47trn was spent by the federal government in maintaining, revamping, and running its four moribund refineries between 2015 and 2020. In spite of this huge sum, the government has approved a fresh $5.74billion (about N2.35trn) for the rehabilitation of the Port-Harcourt (old and new), Warri and Kaduna refineries, and for taking some shares in the Dangote Refinery project. Yet these refineries have remained dilapidated. This cannot be tolerated any longer.

As soon as the refineries start partial production, I will stop the supply of fuel to Kaduna, Delta, and Rivers states and allow the refineries in these states to produce their own fuel for their own consumption. This, they must sustain for one year before we take it to the next level.

After that, I will stop the supply of fuel to two more neighbouring states each. Warri refinery will serve Edo and Anambra states, Port Harcourt refinery will supply Bayelsa and Akwa Ibom states, while Kaduna refinery will serve Kano and Niger states, meaning nine states – Delta, Edo, Anambra, Rivers, Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom, Kaduna, Kano, and Niger states – will get their supply from the four refineries. The goal is to make sure these refineries serve the whole country, but we will take it gradually, one step at a time until they reach full capacity. I believe since most of the workers in these refineries are indigenes and residents of that state, they must be able to produce fuel for themselves and their communities, and if they can’t, the communities should hold them responsible.

I already have my statistics. The refineries have a combined installed capacity of 445,000 bpd, and since Nigeria consumes between 60 million and 70 million litres of fuel daily, 445,000 bpd will just be enough for all Nigerians. Here’s the calculation, one barrel contains 159 litres of fuel, so if we multiply 445,000 by 159, we will get 70,755,000 litres of fuel, the same quantity we need to run our daily businesses.

Aside from petroleum, I will reduce pressure on the federal government through decentralisation by transferring control to the states and local government. For instance, the federal government will no more have control over the marriage registry, it will be the duty of the state and local government. I will allow these local governments to create revenue for themselves and use it for their own advancement.

When I become the president, I will implement an automated system not just for customs and ports, but also for international passports, driver’s licenses, and the likes of NIN, to cut out the hurdle and corruption brought about by third party agents. Nigerians will just go to the website, fill out the application form, upload required documents and submit with the click of a button. Within a period of two weeks at most, your valid document is ready for pickup at the nearest local government office with no extra charge, tip, or bribe.

The fourth and final thing I will do is give special attention to the security of lives, properties, and businesses. I will not think twice before approving the creation of state police. Since every crime is local, I am with the school of thought that the closer the police authorities are to a locality, the more familiar they will be with their challenges and the better prepared they will be to quench any criminality in the area. Jobs will be created as more personnel will be recruited into the force to combat kidnapping, ritual killing, and other crimes that have taken over our society.

But I am not contesting for president in 2023. As I wrote earlier, I was only messing around with the Canva app and trying to see how I will look in a campaign poster. Nevertheless, I have been able to highlight what I expect from whoever emerges as the next president of Nigeria in 2023.

Ojoko is a Nigerian journalist and can be reached via [email protected]