The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje, announced on Thursday that the party has established an intellectual wing, the Progressive Institute, to set agendas and offer solutions to the country’s challenges.
Ganduje made this statement while speaking with members of the Kano Correspondent Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists in his office.
Ganduje stated, “We established what we called an intellectual wing for the party, Progressive Institute. It is to analyze national issues, so the members can get the attention of the government to become an agenda for the government,” Ganduje explained.
He cited the example of the national conference on livestock reforms, which led to the creation of the Ministry of Livestock.
Ganduje said, “We organize a national conference that has led to the creation of the ministry of livestock which will soon be inaugurated by the president. And we hope we will kill so many birds with one stone. First of all, we reduce the issue of conflict and security issue. Second, we modernize the issue of livestock production, which is a new phenomenon and third, the education of the herdsmen which will be for national development.”
Ganduje also discussed the party’s plans to address youth unemployment.
He stated, “Now, we have recently observed that the level of unemployment is going high in the country, especially youth unemployment, and we are organizing a national conference to that effect. We will soon know how we can modernize or reform our national curriculum, even including university curriculum, so that the graduates we will produce will be employable graduates, not unemployable graduates like we are having now.”
On the forthcoming elections in Edo, Ondo, and Anambra states, Ganduje expressed confidence in the party’s chances.
He said, “Let’s start with Edo, which is coming on September 21, 2024. I believe our campaign is with high spirit, we are getting ready for that election and we believe we will be able to recover our state because it was an APC state but because of internal squabbles, we lost it to PDP. But we are sure we will recover that state.”
He also discussed the party’s strategy for the South Eastern states. “Next year, there will be an election in Anambra which has been a state governed by APGA for many years but we have introduced a new scheme. The South East political zone is claiming that it has been marginalized but what we are telling them is that those marginalizations have been created by them. How can you have five states and ruled by four political parties? What will be your political bargain? So, we have introduced a new phenomenon which we call the political marginalization of the southeast geopolitical zone where we are working very hard to ensure that we get more states from that zone and we want to start with Anambra.”
Ganduje hinted at plans to introduce e-registration of party members, internal democracy, and changing the narrative of the party. He also mentioned preparations for the National Executive Council meeting of the party.
