PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan, has\u00a0 called on Nigerian politicians to stop distracting his administration’s focus on governance.<\/p>\n
The President who made the call in Lagos at a media presentation of a book entitled Sure and Steady Transformation, which documents the numerous achievements of his administration in the first one year in office, said the next general election is still three years away.<\/p>\n
The president, who was represented by\u00a0 his Senior Special Adviser on Research, Documentation and Strategy, Mr Oronto Douglas, said the call had become necessary given the preponderance of reports and comments on the 2015 elections in national newspapers and other media channels.<\/p>\n
He argued that in politics, 24 hours was a long time, and wondered why politicians were already talking about 2015 that is three whole years away.<\/p>\n
Said he: \u201cThere seems to be too much politics in Nigeria than governance. In other democracies, politics stops at the end of an election and governance starts. But in Nigeria, it is the opposite.<\/p>\n
\u201cPolitics will not put food on the table of the people. It is governance that will. Let us focus on governance.\u201d<\/p>\n
He advised Nigerians not to allow politicians to distract them with talk about 2015 elections, and focus on sincere assessment of his administration’s ‘Transformation Agenda’, whose achievements in the last one year are documented in the book, and a website, www.sureandsteadytransformation.gov.ng.<\/p>\n
Douglas, and the President’s Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs, Dr Doyin Okupe, who was also at the media briefing, highlighted Jonathan’s numerous achievements, as highlighted in the 155-page book.<\/p>\n
In his comments, Dr Okupe said the Jonathan administration was one of the most performing governments Nigeria had ever had since independence, adding that the president was a very serious and straight forward person.<\/p>\n
Arguing that the president kept his promises, Dr Okupe said the Jonathan administration was transforming all the sectors of the nation, especially the agriculture and power sectors.<\/p>\n
He said even though most Nigerians had acknowledged a noticeable improvement in power supply, with many areas reporting about 12 hours of uninterrupted supply, this would most likely increase to 16 hours by the end of the year, when power generation is expected to reach 7,000 megawatts.<\/p>\n
Said he: \u201cIn a very short time, the agriculture sector will be providing about 25 per cent in terms of revenue of what oil is currently providing us.\u201d<\/p>\n
He described as pedestrian many of the arguments on the state of security in the country, saying that classified information available to him personally, but could not be made public was reassuring. \u201cThe slow down in these terror attacks is not a fluke. It is because more and more efforts are being made, using technology, to nip in the bud the activities of these terror agents,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The 155-page book has 32 sections, with highlights of the achievements of 30 ministries. It also contains the president’s inaugural address, and a section on ‘Building Strong Institutions.’<\/p>\n
Reviewing the book, Dr Otive Igbuzor, a human rights activist, said that the book was a major effort at documenting government\u2019s achievements within the first year in office, adding that what was next is for the ministries to sustain the tempo and double their efforts on service delivery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan, has\u00a0 called on Nigerian politicians to stop distracting his administration’s focus on governance. The President who made the call in Lagos at a media presentation of a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4280,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n