The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD-West Africa) on Wednesday said Nigerians want President Mohammadu Buhari to focus on job creation, economy and security in his second tenure.
Director, CDD-West Africa, Ms Idayat Hassan said that the group recently released the 2019 Buharimeter Survey report, a survey that shows the achievement of Buhari’s first tenure.
Hassan said that the report among other findings identified job creation, economy, security and poverty alleviation as the most important policy priorities that Nigerians want the new administration to address, NAN reports.
“Overall, the two broad themes seeking critical attention from public opinion are-the revamping of the country’s economy and improving the state of security.
“The past surveys by CDD appraised the performance of Buhari’s administration and track achievements against campaign promises.
“However, this latest survey, which marks the 4th in the series of annual perception surveys by the centre, sought to provide the government with a Citizens’ Road Map of key policy priorities that Nigerians expect the president and his administration to address over the next four years,” she said.
Hassan said that the survey was conducted on behalf of CDD by Africa Polling Institute (API), and a total of 5,019 citizens above 18 years were interviewed from a nationally representative sample covering the 36 states and the FCT.
Hassan said the survey showed that about 52 per cent of Nigerians want improvement on the economy, 37 per cent say they want security while four per cent said they want fight against corruption.
She said that the leading and most prevalent security challenge affecting Nigerians is kidnapping, followed by Boko Haram and other insurgencies like cultism, political thuggery, hooliganism and terrorism among others .
She said that while most attention is currently focused on insurgency, it is very clear from the findings that Nigerians are besieged by a multifaceted security crisis.
Hassan the survey also sought policy recommendations to tackle those issues from survey respondents and experts in the areas of economy and security.
“On the issue of job creation, the top recommendations elicited by survey respondents require the government to pursue a youth-sensitive job creation programme, stimulate industrial expansion through both local investments and foreign direct investments.
She said that they also want him to take steps to revive companies that closed down during the recent recession.
She said that they recommended urgent steps to overhaul the education system in order to make it more responsive to the needs of industry and improve the quantity and quality of the workforce being pushed into the labour markets every year.
Hassan said to tackle the security challenges, experts recommended that government should come up with a clearly defined national security strategy that is both comprehensive and effective in responding to the country’s security challenges
She said that there is need for the president to urgently formulate and implement comprehensive reform of the security and rule of law sectors.
She said that this needed to be complemented by Constitutional and administrative reforms that would guarantee citizens’ rights, curb corruption, improve transparency and accountability, and enhance service delivery.
She said that they recommended to the president to establish an intelligence-led security infrastructure with a more responsive security system that involved redeployment of all security personnel into smaller bases.
This, she said is so that every area in the regions could be reached within a short time and by using drones to provide 24hours sky level coverage of trouble spots and regions.
She said there is also need to develop security teams that would recruit ordinary people in each Local Government Area (LGA)in the regions equipped with an analogue phone, whose charge can last weeks, with pre-programmed numbers to call.
She said that the human agents will become a key part of an early warning system that will alert the control room of a problem in their area or of the presence of attackers.
Hassan said that Nigerians would like Buhari to leave behind good governance, good leadership and fulfillment of promises made and a strong economy.
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