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THE PRINCIPLES, AIMS, AND THE GENERAL PROGRAMMES OF THE PEOPLE’S REDEMPTION PARTY (PRP)

THE PRINCIPLES OF THE PEOPLE’S REDEMPTION PARTY

We, the members of the People’s Redemption Party of Nigeria, believe in five fundamental principles. These five principles constitute the foundations on which our party exists; the pillars upon which our party firmly stands, deeply rooted in the history of our country; the cement which binds us together in our struggle for the redemption of our people and our country; as the ideals which give us a sense of common purpose; and the beam of light illuminating our path towards our vision of the future of our great country. These five fundamental principles of the People’s Redemption Party arc:

  1. Value and the Equality of Human Beings

We believe in the human being as the most precious thing in the world, above all wealth and material objects; in the sacrosanct nature of human life; in the collective nature of human existence, in which every human being is unique and has equal rights and duties. And as an individual, he and she are primarily social beings who are members of families, members of communities, and citizens of nations, and links in the chain of succeeding generations of the dead, the living and the unborn, with the fundamental human right to the conditions necessary for the creative development of his and her human potential to the fullest, free from all forms of discrimination, degradation, oppression and exploitation.

  1. The Power of the People

We believe in the inalienable democratic rights and duties of the people to fully, and purposefully, participate in exercising their sovereign rights to decide how they are governed and to elect, hold to public account and remove those who govern them, and to actively participate in determining the direction and content of the political, zeconomic, social, and cultural structures, policies and practices shaping their lives and destiny; and to resist (by legitimate means) any attempt at the violation of these rights. We believe that it is only by the exercise of this right, through the power of a conscious, organized and vigilant people, that any form of human development can be achieved and sustained.

  • State Control of the Economy

We believe that the building of a prosperous and self-reliant national economy has to be on the basis of just social relations of production and exchange, with the democratic state playing the leading role in ensuring that our domestic productive capacity, and the national currency, are developed, modernized and strengthened; and all the human and natural resources of the nation are identified, cherished, utilized and renewed, within the framework of long-term national planning; and that everyone receives fair and adequate returns for their mental and manual labor and legitimate private enterprise, with the aim of constructing a new social order on the basis of the principle of ‘from each according to his ability to each according to his work.’ We believe also in the mainstreaming of the Working People, Worker’s Organizations, Popular Groups, Women, the Youth, and Persons Living with Disabilities in Nigeria’s political and economic process.

  1. Genuine Federalism

We believe in the forging of Nigerian national unity on the basis of justice and equitable political, social and economic opportunities for all citizens, within a genuinely federal system of government in which our diversity is recognized and cherished and which promotes a national sense of belonging and of a common destiny, through the elimination of all unequal and unjust relations of hegemony and monopoly of office and assets between and within ethnic groups, whenever they exist. We are equally committed to the prevention of religious and ethnic strife, through sustained democratic community action and a strong purposeful defense of the fundamental human rights of all citizens, wherever they are.

  1. Total Liberation from Imperialism

We believe that the defense and promotion of our national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity,
economic survival and development, requires the total liberation of our country, and the rest of Africa, and the world from the chains of old and new forms of imperialist domination, including those being imposed through the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and such other international capitalists organizations. This in turn requires the forging of the unity of   all patriotic political organizations across the continent, and the world in order to renew and revitalize the pan-African vision, commitment and action, and to use this to contain and end civil wars and other violent conflicts, and to institutionalize peace and democracy and accelerate regional and continental economic and political integration. We are committed to solidarity with the peoples and governments of Asia, the Pacific, South and Central America, Western Europe and the Caribbean, in order to bring about a new and just international economic order, based on mutual respect and cooperation among nations and which promotes the sustainable use of the natural environment and world peace.

THE GENERAL PROGRAMMES OF THE PEOPLE’S REDEMPTION PARTY

We, the members of the People’s Redemption Party of Nigeria, believing in the five fundamental principles on which our party exists, which are:

  1. The Value and the Equality of Human Beings;
  2. The Power of the People;
  • State Control of the Economy;
  1. Genuine Federalism;
  2. Total Liberation From imperialism;

Solemnly commit ourselves to the following, as the general programmes of our party, derived from the five fundamental principles, and formulated in the light of the conditions, circumstances, aspirations and needs of our country and our people today, as we face the enormous domestic, regional, continental, and global challenges of the twenty-first century.

  1. Building Durable Democratic Institutions and Forging National Reconciliation

We are committed to the building of durable democratic institutions, which shall be capable of permanently subordinating the military to legitimate, democratic civilian authority, and bringing to an end clannish, feudal, bureaucratic and all other forms of autocratic political and administrative practices, because we shall ensure that these democratic institutions gain for themselves, the respect and the vigilant support the majority of the people of this country, for the people will see that, in practice, these institutions can ensure the security of their lives and property, their fundamental human rights, the rule of law, probity and full public accountability, at all levels and at all times; and also because the democratic state plays the leading role in ensuring that everybody gets, fair and adequate returns, and a minimum living income, from their labor and legitimate private enterprise, so that the mass impoverishment and elite enrichment which breeds and sustains money politics, election rigging and election conflicts, and military dictatorships can be systematically, reduced and eliminated in this country. We shall organize proper programmes of national reconciliation for the purpose of ensuring that every Nigerian has a sense of belonging to the country.

  1. Restoring Public Service and Public Accountability

We are committed to restoring the public services and public accountability, by ensuring that all those employed in the public services in all categories, are adequately paid salaries, allowances and other benefits regularly in order to enhance their diligence and productivity, by assuring them of adequate living standards, even after retirement, and which are rationally related to prices and the remuneration in the private sector. We are also committed to restoring discipline; established administrative, financial, and accounting procedures, and orderly conduct at all levels of the public services –  strictly separating public office from private enterprise, by entrenching public accountability and by the leadership setting a clear and unambiguous example of probity and sacrifice, and by developing public scrutiny and the public monitoring of the conduct of public officers and by ensuring prompt investigation, trial and punishment of all those found guilty of abuse of Office and the betrayal of public trust.

  1. Guaranteeing Public Safety and the Rule of Law

We are committed to guaranteeing the safety and security of life, and of private and public property, in every nook and corner of Nigeria, at every hour of the day and night, with an irrevocable determination to assert and sustain the rule or law, through the revitalization, reorientation and enhancement of the moral, material and physical capacities of the security agencies and the judiciary, supported by democratic grassroots community organizations, to ensure the prevention and combating of crime, the elimination of drug abuse, child abuse, human trafficking, prostitution, alcoholism, gambling, domestic violence and other vices; and through the systematic rehabilitation of the victims of crime, ex-convicts and drug addicts, and by strengthening the fabric and bonds of family and community life.

  1. Forging National Unity Bused on Genuine Federalism

We are committed to forging Nigerian national unity, based on a genuinely federal system of government, by squarely addressing the problems of marginalization, monopoly of office and assets and uneven development; vigorously correcting all injustices and inequities and ensuring that the constitutional separation of powers and functions, and the revenue allocation formula, are rigorously adhered to, for each of the three tiers of the Nigerian federal system. We are also committed to the constitutional provisions for zoning and rotation and a multi-party democratic system, made up of genuinely national political parties, in vigorous democratic competition with one another, at all three tiers or government. We are determined to oppose, expose, and eliminate, all internal and external forces manipulating communal, ethnic, regional and religious differences.

  1. The Advancement of the Role of Women, Youth and Persons Living with Disability

We are committed to advancing and enhancing the role of women, youth and persons living with disability in all spheres of the political social, economic and cultural life of the nation, and ensuring and entrenching their active participation in the control and functioning of all organs of government, at all levels: and mobilizing them to empower and emancipate themselves from the bondage of retrograde customs and traditions and modern forms of manipulations, degradation and exploitation by providing the means necessary for their organization, creative recreation and the learning of productive skills. We shall advocate a constitutional amendment to ensure the take-off of active women and youth participation in political activity through a form of gender-based zoning by which one quarter of all seats in all legislatures of the three tiers of government are reserved exclusively for women, and are not contested for in the elections, but are filled with women nominated by political parties on a ratio based on the seats won by each party in the legislature after the election so that at least one quarter of all legislators in the country are women, thus starting the process of equality between women and men.

  1. Promoting and Defending Fundamental Human Rights

We are committed to ensuring for all citizens the fundamental human freedoms and rights guaranteed by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the African Charter of Human and Peoples Rights, and other human rights commitments entered into by Nigeria; and are committed to promoting and defending the fundamental human rights of freedom of speech, and of association of all individual citizens, groups, associations, and trade unions, and political parties, to enable them to lawfully take part in political activities provided that the political parties and trade unions are open to all Nigerians without any linguistic, ethnic, regional, state, religious and gender discrimination. We shall extend our fraternal cooperation to all those among them participating in the struggle for democracy, national unity, liberation, and all round social progress and national liberation.

  1. Combating Corruption and Indiscipline

We are committed to a total war against the cancer of corruption, indiscipline and unpatriotisim and shall ensure that patriotism, probity, principles, integrity and public accountability are entrenched, in practice, in all spheres of national life. We shall take measures to ensure that all those acquiring ill-gotten wealth and sabotaging the national economy, and the national morale, receive exemplary punishment, whoever they maybe. The Party shall advocate and deploy the most sophisticated technology that will enable the blockage of all areas of leakages, waste or pilferage and stealing through the use of Information Technology (IT). The same technology will be developed to support a biometric-based solution that enables conduct of elections through the use of a High Integrity Electronic Voting Solution that will give credibility to our elections, that is, a situation in which the electorate decides the fate of political parties and election candidates.

  1. A New System of National Defense by and for All Citizens

We are committed to the defense of the national independence, the national sovereignty, and the territorial integrity of Nigeria, and shall awaken, organize and actively involve all citizens in this sacred duty at all times and all levels. We shall take measures to ensure that the armed forces, and all the security services, are re-organized, revitalized and modernized for their effective integration as the professional arm of this new system of national security and national defense by, and for, all citizens.

  1. The Total Liberation of all Oppressed and Exploited Peoples of the World

We are committed to continue with the struggle for the total liberation of Africa from imperialist domination, in its old, bilateral and neo-colonial forms, and also in the new multilateral form, through the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, by forging the unity of thought and action of all patriotic and democratic forces across the continent and by the revitalization of the Pan-African vision, commitment and action, to deal directly with the problem of civil wars and other violent conflicts and dictatorships and foreign intervention, which weaken and entrench divisions and facilitate the subjugation of Africa; and which can only be overcome by regional and continental integration. The sub-regional Economic Community shall receive special attention in our collective effort to further integrate our economies and peoples through an enhanced freedom of movement, trade and investment facilitation and a common currency.

  1. 10. Foreign Policy for Self Reliance

We are committed to a foreign policy whose basic objective is self-reliance by diversifying the range of our external relations and by building mutually beneficial relations of equality and mutual respect with other countries of Asia, the Pacific, South and Central America, Europe, and the Caribbean, in order to defend our common interests to bring about a just international economic order, ensure complete nuclear disarmament, reduce and eliminate the arms race and the proliferation of wars, and bring about genuine world peace.

  1. Public Control of Strategic Economic Sectors

We are committed to ensuring that the commanding heights of our national economy are owned and controlled by the people of Nigeria through their governments. This leading role of the state in the economy to ensure that we build the infrastructure, the industries and the other essential economic, scientific and technological assets needed for our own and for African self-reliance, social justice, and even development, shall be without prejudice to the encouragement and support of legitimate and non-speculative private enterprise, which contributes to the productive capacity and development of the national economy.

  1. A Just Land Policy

We are committed to ensuring that all land in Nigeria remains the property of all the people of Nigeria and is utilized by those who live and work on it. We shall resolve the problem of wasteful, speculative, parasitical and destructive land ownership in the interest of the peasant farmers, the pastoralists, fishermen, craftsmen and residents in order to promote just and integrated national development.

  1. A Just System of Taxation

We are committed to the reform of the whole system of taxation in this country and shall categorically abolish the all taxes unjustly imposed on peasant farmers, workers, pastoralist, fishermen, craftsmen, artisans, mechanics and petty traders for the purpose of subjugating them and controlling them and which deprive them of the freedom and the capital resources they need to develop and sustain their productive activity. Instead of these unjust taxes and levies, we shall establish a new, just and efficient taxation system based on level of income and type of activity, so that the producer is encouraged and supported and taxation becomes a positive means of developing real production, and all tax evasion by the rich and powerful is minimized.

  1. Supporting the Rural Producer

We are committed to supporting the rural producer through the provision of seasonal credit, agricultural inputs on reasonable terms, guaranteed prices, and the active encouragement of all forms of mutual aid and cooperative and community organizations. We believe that thrift, credit, cooperative societies and groups are fundamental to the material and socio-economic advancement of our country and the creation and expansion of a reliant investible stock that is necessary for the self-reliant leap frogging of Nigeria’s industrial growth.

  1. Micro, Small and Medium Scale industrialization

We are committed to a nation-wide medium-scale industrialization through the systematic utilization of existing capital resources in the banks and credit institutions to establish one commercially viable medium scale industry in every local government area within four years. Each of these industries would be built with machinery and spare-parts designed and fabricated in Nigeria, using raw materials produced in Nigeria, using local labour and operating as a joint partnership between the federal, state and local government agencies, cooperatives, as well as community banks and local entrepreneurs.

  1. Large-Scale industrialization,

We are committed to giving the highest priority to the revival, reconstruction and maximum utilization of all our iron and steel projects; the aluminum project; the petrochemical projects; the machine tool industry and the pulp, paper, cement, chemical and other basic industries in order to establish the foundations for a self-sustaining large-scale industrialization process. The thrust of this strategy is that the three sub-sectors of the manufacturing sector, namely, capital goods industries, basic materials industries, and consumer goods industries, are going to be developed in an integrated fashion. The capital goods industries are primary, for they produce the tools for the making of the tools and machines for making other machines. Central to these are the machine tools presses, drills and lathes which we need to produce all other machines. Secondly, there are the basic materials industries which transform raw materials into usable intermediate input for subsequent use by other industries, like steel, aluminum, acids, caustic sodas, dyes, chlorine, sodium carbonate and the petrol-chemical substances used in the pharmaceutical, textiles, metallurgy and other industries. As these two groups of industrializing industries are completed, reconstructed revived and expanded, the consumer goods industries shall develop with them, providing a solid home base for growth, free from the crippling fetters of import dependence. The objective is to start and sustain an industrialization process geared to produce for the home market, and the West, Central and East African markets, and for other parts of the world, not just processed raw material and consumer goods but also agricultural machinery, fertilizer, pharmaceuticals, bicycles, cars, trucks ships and the basic construction material needed for the national energy, water, transport, communications and engineering infrastructure which we require for effective economic take-off and entry into the world of the 21st century.

  1. The Rational Use of Petroleum and other Sources of Energy

We are committed to the planned and systematic utilization of the petroleum, coal, hydroelectric and other energy resources of the country, for the purpose of earning foreign exchange for sell-sustaining industrialization; providing the domestic manufacturing and transport sectors with adequate energy and feed stock supplies to expand them and strengthen them against foreign competition and to promote their export capacity as well as to rehabilitate, restore, promote and protect the livelihood and ensure healthy environmental conditions for all citizens living in the areas from where these natural resources are extracted. This would systematically provide electricity, natural gas and petroleum products to every nook and corner of the country for establishing the broad home base for our industrial take-off and for the protection of our natural environment from desertification and erosion.

  1. An Efficient Transport and Communications Infrastructure

We are committed to the rehabilitation and expansion of the whole of the transport and communications infrastructure of the country, with special priority given to the revitalization, expansion, and dualization of the railway using domestic iron and steel production; the restoration of the importance of the waterways; the rationalization of road and air transport; and the development of a well-equipped and reliable modern telecommunication system, sustained through the rapid development of a supporting electronics industry and Information Communications and Technology (ICT), all geared to serve in forging the integration of the Economic Community of West African States and the African Economic Community.

  1. Medium Term National Economic Recovery Plan

We are committed to the systematic expansion of productive employment and the gradual elimination of unproductive employment, together with the stabilization of real incomes and prices as part of a medium-term Emergency National Economic Recovery Plan necessary for the revival of the economy. This will involve the imposition of firm limits on the proportion of our capital resources going into debt servicing, administration and private bank accounts abroad. This would boost investment of most of the capital generated in the country into productive projects for real production and for education and health; it would also boost national collective wages and salaries bargaining and nationally agreed indexation of wages to prices, and fix a value for the naira consistent with our essential domestic needs for economic survival, recovery and self-sustained growth. The plan shall aim at the revival and restoration of production in agriculture, manufacturing, mining and other sectors of real production in the economy, and it shall be worked out and formally enacted into law with the full involvement of the private sector, the trade unions, the senior staff, professional and market associations, and shall provide for all productive sectors effective protection from unfair foreign competition. It shall also provide for special credit, foreign exchange, tax incentives and subsidies for the purpose of raising output, productivity and forward and backward linkages.

  1. Ensuring Healthy and Productive citizens

We are committed to the provision, as a matter of the highest priority, of clean potable water for all Nigerians wherever they live in the country, and the rehabilitation of the primary health care and medical services to all citizens, to provide free health care for all citizens. We shall commit to the pursuit of a food policy aimed at using our varied food resources to enable everybody to be able to afford a reasonably balanced diet as a minimum necessary to ensure that the country’s greatest assets, its people, are made healthy, creative and productive.

  1. Education for Enlightenment and Production

We are committed to the rehabilitation and restoration of our education system from the primary to the university level for this is a matter of the highest priority for the forging of national unity, the institutionalization of democracy, the entrenchment of public accountability, the rule of law and the revival of the economy – all of which are only possible with an enlightened and educated citizenry. The process of learning shall be reoriented and revitalized with greater participation in its administration by parents and teachers in order to produce disciplined, democratic and productive citizens. We are committed to the provision of free and compulsory education for all children up to senior secondary level, free tuition at all tertiary institutions, and mass and functional literacy and continuing education for all adults leading to the complete elimination of illiteracy within the shortest possible time among those aged between six and sixty years.

  1. Science, Technology and Self-Reliance

We are committed to vigorously implementing the existing national science and technology policy and completing all projects under it, with the objective of getting the country on the road of significantly reducing its scientific and technological dependence on foreign countries: and all major agricultural, manufacturing, construction and service enterprises will be required to establish and adequately fund research and development division and show evidence that they are pursuing a clearly set out plan of reducing their dependence on imported technology. Special credit facilities and tax concessions shall be given to encourage this. The scientific and technological content of education at all level shall be raised and a national programme for computer education from the primary level shall be worked out and implemented, alongside the policy of the computerization of the operations in the public service. We would invest in research development in science and technology and make these an integral component of support to every sector within the framework of our National Economic Development Plan.

  1. Housing Development

We are committed to ensuring that at the local government, state government and federal government level, comprehensive plans are made for the development of houses and of residential areas which involve both the public and private sector and which encourage owner-occupation and owner-responsibility for maintenance and sanitation. This would require a reorientation of the construction industry to bring down the cost of building materials and to enable as many people as possible build their own houses with durable materials, adequate ventilation and sanitation. This would also require the development and supervision of building societies and other financial institution in the housing sector.

  1. Comprehensive Urban Development

We are committed to reversing the disastrous decline in infrastructure, administration and sanitation in all our cities and urban centers, where increasingly more and more of our people live and where our industries and major service enterprises are located. We are committed to the comprehensive planning of urban development from the grassroots level of the street and the quarter to ensure the active involvement of the residents and others who through their organizations shall be empowered to play a significant role in urban administration. We shall establish a Ministry for Urban Development, whose first task is to coordinate all government policy to see that we work out and reverse the decline and decay in our urban centers and start our cities on the road to renewal and revival.

  1. Rural Empowerment and Development

We are commuted to formulating and implementing a national rural development policy involving the active empowerment of the organized groups in the rural communities so that in each of the rural wards of this country a minimum level of infrastructure is provided within four years, including clean potable water, electricity, and motorable roads, or water transport facilities and markets to enable the rural communities to have a basic level for economic recovery and revival. We shall do everything to support the empowerment of organizations or farmers, rural artisan, fishermen, pastoralists, traders, youth women and traders to work together to contain and eliminate the increasing incidences of violent rural conflicts and also to supervise and monitor government projects in the rural areas. The rehabilitation of oil-producing areas devastated by oil pollution caused by oil production will get the highest priority as well as a sustained programme for reversing erosion and desertification.

 

  1. Cultural Development

We are committed to the promotion and sustained development of our rich and diverse cultural heritage,

particularly our languages and the arts, that convey our distinctly humane African values, including the literary arts, the performing arts and all facets of our culture as a living part of the daily productive and recreational life of the people, in order to develop deep cultural roots for the present and future generations and to forge unity, patriotism and mutual respect among all our people, to the extent that every Nigerian has a sense of belonging and commitment to the national pride.

  1. Information for National Development and Self-reliance

We are committed to formulating and implementing a national policy on information which will take into account the powerful influence the new information technology has given to mass communication, with the objective of ensuring that we reconstruct and upgrade our information infrastructure and stay abreast of current developments in information science and technology which are changing the ways people communicate and interact globally, in order to stay in control of these developments so that they enhance national development and self-reliance and protect our cultural identity and national sovereignty. The role of the mass media both electronic, print and social media, in enlightenment for popular democratic participation and public accountability will be supported and incentives will be given to encourage the mass media to play the useful role in education, particularly in promoting scientific knowledge and attitudes, patriotism, humane values and a Pan-African vision and commitment.

  1. Youth Development

We are committed to the building of youth programmes with youth centres which conduct recreational, sporting, cultural, educational and other activities to promote individual and collective creativity, a sense of worth, social responsibility and patriotism among the youth and the harnessing of their energy for productive projects and for building communal harmony, strengthening the fabric of our society and nation and developing in them a Pan-African vision and commitment, with the objectives of preparing the youth as worthy leaders of tomorrow.

  1. Constructive Roles for Retired Public Servants and Ex-Servicemen

We are committed to the provision of guaranteed and adequate pension, paid promptly, regularly and indexed to prices, for senior citizens who have served the country honourably in the public service, the armed forces and the security services. We would ensure that the provision of social amenities is made to make their retirement decent and dignified and we shall support them in playing a constructive role in strengthening the fabric of the community in inculcating patriotism and communal and national harmony.

  1. Job Creation

Under a PRP Administration, the State shall in partnership with private investors, facilitate the identification and expansion of potential areas of Job Creation in Agriculture and other industrial sectors and source funds to inject into the process. To this end, there shall be a determined effort to coordinate and promote all institutions dedicated to the promotion of skills acquisition and development.

  1. Mining Development

The PRP shall explore all strategies to promote and facilitate a comprehensive survey and documentation of Nigeria’s mineral wealth with a view to their systematic and sustainable exploitation for the economic development, material advancement and rapid expansion for the infrastructural stockpile of the country.

  1. Opposition to Mindless and Unpatriotic Political Opposition

We shall support any political party that wins power in a free, fair, and transparent election leading to a legitimate governance, to succeed in performance in the interest of Nigeria.

  1. Relative Advantage of Nigeria

After taking in to account all the advantages Nigeria has, we shall aim at making Nigeria one of the five most developed and democratic countries in the world within 20 years from the date the PRP gains the presidency of Nigeria.