Nigeria Content Online

The president is
not a police officer, but he should be able to give the police free
hand and be able to supervise them, Goodluck Jonathan said yesterday in
Abuja.

Speaking at the
16th National Economic Summit at the Transcorp Hilton, he also stated
that corruption is birthed out of greed, which is innate in every human
being.

“My vision is to
build a Nigeria that all Nigerians would be proud of, because people
are losing confidence in the nation. To develop a nation built on
unity, where we will all believe in ourselves that we are one person; a
unity that can encourage sound economy, based on solid education, so
that we can move further; where there the basic infrastructures, like
power, roads and others are available; where the private sector is
viable, and security would encourage investments locally and foreign
direct investments,” he said.

Speaking on the
current state of security in the country, which has become tense
following the October 1 twin bomb blasts in Abuja and the continuous
scare of a repeat attack, President Jonathan said security issues are a
challenge to any government and Nigeria is not an exemption. He also
promised to fight kidnapping and militancy.

“What is happening
now is commercial and anyone doing something to make money will not
stop,” he said. “However, we are getting a special fund to fund the
police in order to curb all these excesses. What we have now is no
longer agitation but criminality. Amnesty has ensured that militancy
ends. Yes, we have some challenges we are addressing, but we must
separate criminality from militancy.”

A former Chief
Justice of Nigeria, Alfa Belgore, who spoke on the issue of why
corruption has thrived in Nigeria, said “most of our laws are
antiquated and the procedures in which cases are tried should be looked
into.” He said Nigeria needs “a simple and cheap” procedure which will
speed up cases.

Generate jobs

Mr Jonathan also
identified lack of consistency in planning as one of the major
challenges the country is facing in its effort to achieve national
development goals and objectives.

According to him,
the longest period the country experienced stability in the development
of the country was during the Yakubu Gowon administration, about nine
years.

“The Ministry of
National Planning would be made to play a key role in the capital
budget process next year to ensure that the budgeting procedures
tallied with the national planning objectives,” he said. “If government
must follow the Vision 20-2020 document, which has been carefully
articulated, government must allow its plans to follow the vision to
the letter,” he said.

The president, who
noted that the growth of the nation is hinged on investment in the
power sector, said if his administration is able to stabilize power
supply in the country, small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) would
flourish and create jobs for the people.

Minister of
Finance, Segun Aganga, attributed the high level of poverty and
unemployment underlining the country’s economic situation to the boom
and bust experience in the international oil market. He said the
National Economic Management Team has been mandated to focus on job
creation through wide consultations with various stakeholders to build
a strong partnership between the private and public sectors to move the
economy forward.

Participants in the
programme included: Mr Belgore; Chairman of the Board of the NESG, Sam
Ohuabunwa; Managing Director, Legacy Pensions Nigeria Limited, Bello
Machido and Minister of National Planning, Shamusudeen Usman.