I’ll improve Nigeria’s healthcare, Bakare pledges as he declares for president

Renown cleric, lawyer and business man, Pastor Tunde Bakare today formerly joined the race to contest for the office of Nigeria’s president with a pledge to address Nigeria’s fallen standard of health care delivery, if elected.

Making his declaration at the  Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja, Bakare who has just relinquished his position as the overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church to face politics said sound health care delivery would form a part of his broader range of policies.

He pledged to establish, in each geoeconomic zone, a medical city with health industry clusters affiliated to the teaching hospitals as well as the secondary and primary health centres in each zone.

“This will improve the quality of healthcare delivery in tertiary, secondary and primary health centres across the country and will provide incentives for our doctors and nurses to practice here in Nigeria.”

Dr. Bakare also promised to broaden the scope of the National Health Insurance Scheme to ensure that no Nigerian life is dispensable.

“Our medical cities will give the primary school teacher access to the same quality of healthcare that is currently available only to those who can afford to travel to cities like Dubai,” he pledged.

Bakare also pledged to build “a new Nigeria for every Nigeria where no one goes to bed hungry and no child is left out of school without access to quality education”

The new Nigeria, he further said would become “where our homes, schools, streets, villages, highways and cities are safe and secure, and Nigerians can work, play or travel with their minds at rest, and go to bed with their hearts at peace; a Nigeria where our hospitals are life-saving institutions and every Nigerian has access to good quality healthcare; where youth are gainfully employed and our young men and women are job creators; where businesses thrive on innovation and made-in-Nigeria can compete anywhere in the global market.”

Also, he said, the country would be transformed to where homes and businesses have access to uninterrupted power supply and ideas are facilitated by functional infrastructure and cutting-edge technology; where no part of our nation – North, South, East or West – feels marginalised and every Nigerian is proud to say, ‘I am a Nigerian.’

Bakare announced that his government would be hinged on four mandates: Peace, Progress, Prosperity and Possibilities.

Under his peace mandate, the government, he said,  would establish the Presidential Commission for National Reconciliation, Reintegration and Rebirth whose Board of Trustees will consist of three eminent Nigerians from each of our six geopolitical zones.

The goal he said, would be “to address the grave wounds of the past and present and lay to rest the politics of suspicion towards achieving true nationhood, among other policies and programmes.”

“Under the Progress Mandate, we will alleviate poverty in the short-term by offering safety nets to our most vulnerable while implementing long-term poverty eradication policies. We will also develop a healthy and highly skilled workforce that will drive our national growth and development objectives. Furthermore, under this mandate, we will protect the vulnerable and foster equity and social inclusiveness in access to opportunities.

“We will achieve the Prosperity Mandate by launching the Nigerian Geoeconomic Development Plan (N-GDP) on day one of my inauguration as president. The Nigerian Geoeconomic Development Plan (N-GDP) is a new way of looking at our GDP; therefore, you would be right to refer to it as The New GDP. Guided by the N-GDP, we will rebuild Nigeria’s economy around six competitive geoeconomic zones, triple Nigeria’s GDP to $1.5 trillion by 2030, and industrialise Nigeria around the hub-and-spoke model of industrialisation.

“The Possibilities Mandate will cater to our policy thrust in Science, Technology and Innovation; Foreign Policy; Sustainability; and Arts, Culture, Entertainment and Sports (ACETS).

“The objectives of the Possibilities Mandate include Nigeria’s leapfrogging as a leader in the fourth industrial revolution as well as our emergence as a global hub of creative and cultural industries. It also includes projecting the elements of Nigeria’s national power in defence of our national interest, protecting Nigerian citizens across the globe, and providing leadership on the African continent. In addition, the Possibilities Mandate is aimed at conserving Nigeria’s national wealth and resources for the benefit of future generations, even as we meet the needs of the present generation of Nigerians.”

Pastor Bakare and wife