Wole Soyinka, Nobel laureate, has urged the federal government
to consider the comment by Olusegun Obasanjo, former president, on
the rising insecurity in the country.
The foremost playwright was speaking at an event organised by
the United Bank of Africa to mark the 2019 Africa Day, in Lagos, on
Wednesday.
While delivering a lecture on Saturday in Delta state, Obasanjo
had said the Boko Haram crisis had become an agenda for “West
African Fulanization, African Islamisation”.
In reaction, Lai Mohammed, minister of information, said such
comment by the former president is absurd and divisive.
Soyinka said rather than dismiss Obasanjo’s comment, the
government should deal with its substance.
He said leaders should not be too carried away by the “marvelous
concept of unity” to the point of ignoring the issues that threaten
the existence of the nation and its people.
Soyinka urged the government to prioritize the material
condition of its citizens, saying “we are being re-colonized by a
number of forces.”
“We should be careful not to be too dismissive over the matter.
The Federal Government is leaving aside the substance, which is the
high level of kidnapping, youth suicide and terrorism in the
country. I support unity in Africa but we need to particularize the
area of unity we seek. Even Boko Haram also tries to unify
everybody,” he said.
“Everybody knows me and Obasanjo, and I think we should be
careful not to be too dismissive or abrasive. The language must be
put aside and let us deal with the substance.
“Let us analyse carefully what the (former) president has said.
I was listening to the Minister of Information; they are living
aside the substance and dealing with the person. Obasanjo also
called for a meeting to deal with the social malaise of suicide,
kidnapping, noting that we had better sit down and tackle this
issues.”
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Udoma: Nigeria to Achieve 7% GDP growth by
2020
The Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udoma Udo
Udoma has expressed hope that the country can achieve 7% GDP growth
target.
Senator Udoma stated this on Tuesday in Abuja during an
interactive session with the press while giving an overview of the
achievements of the Ministry since the inception of this
administration in 2015.
Udoma said, ‘’The President has indicated that he intends to
stay focused on the implementation of the ERGP so as to ensure that
we can achieve the 3.0 % growth target for this year. It is my hope
that the seeds we are currently sowing will propel us to achieve
our 7% GDP growth target in the course of Mr. Presidents’ second
term”.
On the latest GDP numbers just released by the National Bureau
of Statistics on Tuesday, the Minister said that the performance in
the first quarter of 2019 is the strongest first quarter growth
since 2015, as well as stating that starting the year with a GDP
growth of 2.01% is encouraging because the first quarter of the
year often records the slowest growth in GDP.
He also said that the focus of the NEXT LEVEL agenda of
President Muhammadu Buhari will be on job creation for the teeming
youths of Nigeria.
He highlighted a number of measures the Ministry has put in
place to stop the economic decline that the country faced during
the early days of the Buhari administration.
These Include, the introduction of an expansionary budget in the
2016 fiscal year christened the Budget of Change, development of
the ERGP, implementation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA), the
Efficiency Unit within the Ministry of Finance and the Presidential
Initiative on Continuous Audit.
Other initiatives include the Whistle Blowing Policy, the
Integrated Payroll Personnel System (IPPIS) and the Investors’ and
Exporters Foreign Exchange window by the Central Bank of
Nigeria.
According to the Minister an important strategy the Ministry
embarked on in order to exit recession was to seek to reflate the
economy, this according to him was why they increased the capital
budget and budgetary allocations to capital expenditure- from 16.1%
in 2015 to 30.2% in 2016, 31. 7 % in 2017, 31.5% in 2018 and 26% in
2019- with priority given to the key execution priorities of the
ERGP.
He added that the Ministry of Finance was able to release, for
capital spending, the sum of 1.2 trillion under the 2016 Budget,
the sum of N1.58 trillion under the 2017 budget, and as at 8th May,
2019, the sum of NI.55 trillion has been released under the 2018
Budget.
He stated that the implementation of the ERGP resulted in the
economy exiting recession in the second quarter of 2017 and
returning subsequently to the path of growth with most economic
indices showing a positive momentum.
Signed
Victoria Agba-Attah
Director (Information)
Tuesday, May 21, 2019