Editor, Politics/Features, EMEKA ALEX DURU, writes on the efforts and drawbacks of President Goodluck Jonathan administration in fixing the country.
“The (Goodluck) Jonathan administration, without doubt, will leave Nigeria a much transformed country,” declared Special Adviser to the President on Research, Documentation and Strategy, Oronto Douglas, in what seemed a riposte to allegations of non-performance levelled on the administration by its opponents.
A major trend among critics and opponents of the government is the allegation of non-performance on virtually all aspects of the national life.
When, for instance, the president had remarked that his administration was winning the war against terror and insecurity in the land, it was obvious that the declaration was bound to ruffle some feathers. For individuals and groups who had borne the brunt of the regime of violence that seemed to have reigned in the land in the last couple of years, the president’s homily was hardly soothing. Some, especially his political opponents, dismissed him with a wave of the hand, accusing his government of lacking vision and focus.
However, Douglas, who presented government’s perspective in Lagos, listed some of its efforts at impacting on Nigerians, stressing: “That is why government is in place to serve the people.”
The presentation had captured government’s activities in the agriculture, health, petroleum resources, works and aviation sectors. In works, it stated that the Ministry of Works constructed or rehabilitated over 2,000 kilometres of road in 2013 alone. More, according to him, had been fixed subsequently.
“To put that in perspective, the distance between Lagos and Maiduguri is approximately 1,227 Kilometres,” he enthused.
He listed Onitsha – Owerri and Vom – Manchok roads among the highways that have been completed. Apapa – Oshodi Expressway, Benin – Ore – Shagamu Highway and Enugu – Port Harcourt dual carriage, he noted, are also being reconstructed, as well as Kano – Maiduguri and Abuja – Abaji – Lokoja roads being dualised.
Douglas explained the touted improvement in the country’s agriculture to government’s intervention in the four decades of corruption in fertiliser and seed distribution which resulted in direct access by farmers, thereby saving the government N25 billion in 2012 alone. Government, he added, had not relented in the exercise.
With the revolution in the sector, over 250,000 farmers and youths in the Northern states are profitably engaged in farming, he said, adding that by the initiative, Nigeria’s food import bill had reduced drastically, placing the country firmly on the path to food self-sufficiency.
The government, he said, is also not relenting in the health sector. According to Douglas, there has been an improved access to primary healthcare. He stressed that under the ‘Saving One Million Lives’ initiative, over 433,650 lives were saved from November 2012 to June 2013 by scaling up six cost-effective interventions, including maternal and child, nutrition, prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, provision of essential commodities, malaria control, routine immunisation/ eradication of polio.
About 1,500 primary healthcare facilities have been refurbished and supplied with essential drugs, he stated, adding that several teaching hospitals and medical centres have been rehabilitated and modernised, including Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) and University of Benin (UNIBEN) teaching hospitals.
Stable supply of petroleum products, as well as efficient administration of the subsidy programme at reduced cost, were among the feats the Special Adviser credited Jonathan with in the petroleum resources sector.
Gas flaring, he stated, had been reduced drastically as a result of the encouragement of accelerated gas development projects. According to him, Nigeria will soon become a major player in the international market, through the implementation of the Nigerian Gas Masterplan Compressed Natural Gas programme currently in progress.
In the aviation sector, Douglas recalled that for the first time ever, Nigeria has an aviation master plan and road map, adding that there has been a robust revision of the national civil aviation policy for the first time in over 12 years. Within the same period, he stated, all 22 federal-owned airports across the country are being remodelled, resulting in improved passenger experience.
This, incidentally, had been a sector that many had sneered at as a major index of corruption and inefficiency in the land. In fact, by the dying days of 2005, it had become apparent that the waning confidence Nigerians had on the aviation sector dipped further, following two fatal air disasters within seven weeks. The two incidents were Bellview Airlines Flight 210 that killed all 117 people on board on October 22, and Sosoliso Airlines Flight 1145 that killed 105 of 108 passengers, including 61 students from Loyola Jesuit College on December 10.
It was not that Nigerians had entirely been enthusiastic about the sector before the two incidences. There had, in fact, been occasions when concerned analysts referred to airplanes in the country as mere flying coffins.
Aside the obviously rickety aircraft, the infrastructure at the various airports had left much to be desired. Apart from malfunctioning structures that were at various stages of dilapidation, there were also instances of abandoned projects littering the nation’s airports and other aviation facilities.
By 2014, however, visible efforts had been made in repackaging the nation’s airports. At the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos, for instance, apart from the General Aviation Terminal (GAT), which witnessed huge infrastructure uplift, not much was done, especially at the international wing.
There is also the aerotropolis project that is envisioned to capture a six-storey structure that would house car park, hotel and other facilities, in addition to other expansion works at the airport.
But even as the government brandishes its scorecard, critics are not amused, stressing, however, that given the volume of resources at its disposal, not much had actually been achieved.
Dr. Ade Adewale, a development expert, for instance, argued that “any assessment of government’s performance without a critical consideration of the huge resources at its disposal, would remain a farce”. He stated that mere construction of roads and other physical infrastructure would not be enough to award the government a pass mark.
And opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) also toed this line of argument, in fact, going further to accuse the government of paying lip service to the fight against corruption, widely seen as drawing back the wheel of development in the land. The party’s spokesman, Lai Mohammed, has, on occasions, accused the government of lacking in focus and action.
Douglas, however, maintained that the Jonathan transformation agenda remains on course, assuring that if he gets elected in February, he would do more in repositioning the country.
