Journalists in Nigeria have advised the Federal Government to enlist the support of community leaders across the nation in finding lasting solutions to the problem of insurgency, particularly in the North East and the South East.
This was contained in a Communiqué at the end of National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), the umbrella body of the professionals, held on Friday in Owerri, the Imo state capital.
The journalists wanted a more robust response from all stakeholders, including NGOs, Development partners and other donor agencies in rebuilding and re-integrating victims of insurgency, especially in the North East, in order to discourage those who have moved to their communities from returning to the IDP camps.
The Communiqué which was signed by the national secretary of NUJ, Shuaibu Usman Leman asked the Federal Government to specifically address the state of insecurity,especially the rising cases of kidnapping that is fast spreading to all parts of the country.
The NUJ appealed to Nigerians generally to support the armed forces in their effort at containing the insurgency in the country.
This was even as it wanted men and women of good will to prevail on the youths of the Niger Delta to desist from further destruction of national assets and that the Federal Government should give adequate attention to the legitimate developmental needs of the oil producing areas.
The Union wanted the government to declare state of emergency on Nigerian roads to forestall further decay, loss of lives and property on highways.
“That Government at all levels should work to improve relationship with journalists covering their activities, especially in ensuring access to information at their events.
“That the Federal Government should expedite the process of reviewing upward the present minimum wage which is no longer in tandem with prevailing economic realities in the country.
“That the judicial system in the country should be strengthened to end impunity with regards to crimes against journalists.”
Members of the NEC endorsed the report of the caretaker committee of Osun State Council and approved that elections be held in January as planned. This was even as it advised that state governments should be encouraged to continue to support and assist the union in its activities.
It expressed gratitude to the Imo State Government and Governor Rochas Okorocha for facilitating the hosting of the NEC meeting in Owerri.
“NEC also appreciates the Imo State Council and Zone C of the Union for a good organization of the NEC meeting. [myad]

The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has alleged that there is ethnic and cleansing with the killing of over 102 Christians in Godogodo and Gidan Waya communities in Jema’a Local Government Area of Kaduna State by Fulani herdsmen.
The umbrella Christian religious organization also said that 50,000 houses have been burnt in 25 Christian communities, where as 102 people have been killed and 215 injured in Kaduna State within six months by the herdsmen.
Speaking at a press briefing in Abuja today, as he received representatives of the 25 villages displaced by the crisis rocking Southern Kaduna, the President of CAN, Dr. Samson Supo Ayokunle, said the killings amounted to ethnic and religious cleansing.
According to Ayokunle, Christians in those communities in Southern Kaduna have been facing the dangers of annihilation, extinction and genocide because of the threats of attacks by Fulani herdsmen.

“Many of them can no longer live in their communities, 32 people were recently given mass burial. Whoever is killed, whether Christian or Muslim, deserve not to be killed in this country.”
Ayokunle wondered why Governor Nasiru El-Rufai, who is the chief security officer of Kaduna State, would visit the two communities only once despite the fact that many houses were burnt and three villages were taken over by the gun-wielding Fulani militants.
“Is this not Boko Haram in another colour? I want to plead with the government; this is a moment of truth. It is not about politics, religion or ethnicity. It is about the value that is attached to life.
“To keep Nigeria as one is first the task of government before it becomes the task of the citizens. Ethnic and religious cleansing should stop henceforth. Every systematic killing should stop.
“We know the President is trying but that is not enough. You have to do more to save these innocent lives. We are appealing to the Federal Government and Governor El-Rufai, the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris to do their work and let us see and not rhetoric. Killings in those communities have continued up till now. Let us not forget that an invitation to aggression depends on the degree of frustration.”
The Secretary of CAN in Godogodo Zone, Rev. Chawangon Nathan, said that the problem which started on May 26, 2016 had degenerated to uncontrollable crisis due to the non-challant attitude of those in authority.
According to Nathan, not less than 25 villages in Southern Kaduna had been brought down by the Fulani herdsmen, who he said media unfortunately described as unknown gunmen.
He added that despite knowing the culprits, the security operatives refused to arrest them.
Nathan said: “Over 102 people have so far been killed with about 215 sustained various degree of injuries. 50, 000 houses burnt in 25 villages, over 10, 000 displaced and over 30, 000 hectares of land destroyed deliberately by Fulani herdsmen within six months.
“The governor visited only one village once and the impact of that visit is not felt up till today. There is religious sentiment among the security operatives.” [myad]

“As we continue with the national quest for answers to the great questions of our time, I urge that we do a self- assessment of where we stand as nation.”
The All Progressives Congress (APC) Governorship candidate in the 2015 election in Rivers state, Dr. Dakuku Peterside made this poser today, Friday, at this year’s University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) Distinguished Persons Annual Lecture of the Faculty of Management in a lecture titled: Connected Vision: Building Blocks of a New Nigeria, at the Enugu Campus of the University.
Peterside, who is currently the Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), said that at present Nigeria has no what he called: “CONNECTED VISION.”
He argued that vision is the key driver of any endeavour, saying: “this original haziness in what constitute the overriding national vision has constantly plagued our national development in nearly every sphere. My key observation here and operating thesis therefore is that a nation can only endure if it is founded on an integrated and comprehensive vision (connected vision). Nigeria unfortunately missed that opportunity at inception.
“This original ‘sin’ has multiplied and contributed to the ever so frequent quest for a new nation founded on a new vision.”
Dr. Peterside said that Nigeria’s challenges were historical, recalling that what the British ceded in 1960 was a complex outcome of negotiated settlements among Nigerian elite, representing first and foremost, their respective regional and ethnic interests. “There was no pan Nigerian interest or pan Nigerian Agenda. There was no “CONNECTED VISION.”
Dr. Peterside however said that visions can be corrected even though it is a difficult endeavour.
The NIMASA Director General said that hope in a Nigeria connected by vision is in the horizon if the nation will retrace its steps and focus on the factors that can make Nigeria great.
“The factors that have been identified are put forward as a guide for this assessment. The solutions we endlessly seek would seem right at our doorsteps. But there is a great amount of political will to do what is necessary.”
Peterside commended the Muhammadu Buhari administration for its anti-corruption efforts, emphasising: “this is one area where there is a growing national consensus in Nigeria that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has displayed unusual courage. “There are divergent views as to the effectiveness of current measures but many agree that it required a lot of courage to make a start. It is hoped that the Nigerian public will appreciate the significance of this effort in the overall improvement of the quality of governance in the country.”
The NIMASA boss said that the development of the capacities and capabilities of people is perhaps the greatest investment any nation can make because, a well-educated citizenry can conceptualise and implement sound economic policies based on its peculiar realities of geography, natural and human resources.
Full text of his lecture is reproduced here”

I am most grateful to the Department of Management and the authority of this great university for their kindness to invite me to deliver this lecture, even when I am not privileged to be “a Lion”. Returning to the university campus to rub minds with fellow students is always a gratifying experience for me; more so, as learning is a continuous process. I would like to say that I am at the early stages of my own adult learning experience, learning from the multiverse of the larger
society. The regulatory Agency, NIMASA, I currently serve is a special learning experience that could qualify for a University degree.
It is my hope therefore that at the end of today’s interaction, I would have increased what I know and reduced what I do not know.  In many ways, this is going to be a transactional interaction in the
sense that I place greater value in what I hope to learn from you than in what I am about to say.
I would like to relate to the topic of this lecture through a series of questions. I have chosen this path because we are all students questing after greater knowledge. And the right knowledge can only
come about if we ask questions- the right ones.
Another reason is that there is an implicit interrogation element in the topic. We live in a country that is currently undergoing and doing a great deal of self-examination in nearly all spheres of our national
life. We are force by the prevailing economic and political challenges to undertake this rigorous exercise in self-examination and interrogation. As it were, it is question time in Nigeria, in which both Leaders and the led are asking how did we get here and how did things got so bad?
As students and citizens we are today busy interrogating our destiny as a nation. We are asking many questions about our history, orientation, institutions and corporate organizations. We wonder why
true greatness has remained elusive to our nation. We are at a loss why the common things that citizens of other nations take for granted continue to elude us. In this knowledge community, I am sure the
questions acquire greater urgency and stridency as the period of youth and studentship is that of great expectations. It is a period of great dreams and bubbling energy.
Further, being citizens of Africa’s biggest economy and the country with the highest population of black people, and abundant natural resources, we have a right to expect a good life after schooling. But
this has developed into entitlement culture that people have got used to expecting certain privileges as rights. Since things do not work that way, they seem to be in quandary as to why the basic things
expected from the society are not gotten and why the ones they are used to are fast disappearing.
For those of us present here the objects of collective national self interrogation will include: why are job opportunities diminishing in a country where there are so much work to be done? Why have the elements of national greatness- economic growth, quality education, progress in science and technology, reliable infrastructure to support economic growth, basic security of life and property, religious harmony and an efficient system of government- seemed to elude us as a nation after
more than half a century of formal independence. In trying to reflect this, many of our thinkers have argued that we only got political independence and never worked for economic independence.
As a player in the political space and corporate world, I am very troubled by the fact that many of our institutions and corporate organizations hardly survive beyond a few dispensations. If you
recall, a number of our government owned companies were so badly run that the option of privatization and government divestment became inevitable. Even our private sector organizations are not insulated
from the culture of instability and lack of sustainability. This is understandable given the nexus between the public and private sectors.
Government through its organs and policies provide the environment in which the corporate organizations thrive or perish. When policy instability prevails in the political public space, it will be
extremely hard for corporate organizations to survive let alone thrive.
It is pertinent to state at this juncture that this process of self-interrogation did not start today. It has always been a feature of our national life to question the basic vision and orientation of our nation. In my view, this urge for a better or “alternative” Nigeria is a healthy sign. When people are dissatisfied with their current reality, it is a healthy indicator that people are willing to search for a better reality. In recent times, however, the self-interrogation may have assumed a new urgency because of our
desperate economic circumstances.
It is true that Nigeria is in recession, in the first quarter of this year (2016) our GDP as given by NBS is minus 0.36%, that of the second quarter was given as minus 2.06%, with our country ranked 169 out of
189 in the 2016 World Bank ease of doing business ranking index.
Nigeria is placed 136 out of 165 ranked in Transparency International Corruption perception index 2015 (transparency.org). Notwithstanding the negative statistics, the fact remains that the search for a
greater Nigeria has always been a feature of our public discourse: from the inception of military rule in 1966, at the end of the Nigerian Civil War in 1970, through the military rule that terminated
in 1999 to mention few. Why has the search not yielded the desired result?
To answer the question as well as proffer practicable solution to this seemingly complex problem, first I would like to establish the nexus between sound visioning and sustainability in both political and
corporate domains. At the political and historical level, my task is to indicate, in the words of Chinua Achebe ‘where the rain began to beat us’ or where our original national vision became defected. I will
then proceed to indicate the basic general elements in the founding and sustenance of great nations in world history.
This will enable us to assess our progress against the essential factors and elements that have fashioned and distinguished great nations. In the process, it will be inevitable to cast side glances at how well or badly Nigeria has fared among its “age grade of nations,” nations indeed have age grades. No nation can avoid comparing itself against the achievements of those it considers its age mates and even rivals. The implications of these national development factors for corporate survival and sustainability in individual nations will become self-evident then.
It has since been established that an overriding vision is key to the success of nations and corporations.  Vision determines progress.
Rightly regarded, a vision is by its very nature larger than the dreams and aspirations of any one player or even the aggregate vision of a set of players in a nation or corporation. It ought to define the big picture, the guiding principle of the nation or organization in the long stretch of its history. Vision is not physical sight, for many who have sight do not have vision and some who have vision do not have sight.
For instance, quadranially the Americans go to the polls to choose a new president. In the run up to the elections, the campaign of each contestant is weighed constantly and balanced informally by the degree
to which it approximates the broad principles and ideals of freedom, justice, equality and opportunity enunciated earlier by the founding fathers.  Therefore, to many Nigerians, the recent triumph of Mr
Donald Trump was shocking as “voting” in Nigeria was for their interest, whereas the Americans voted for what they think best serves their over ridding interests especially expansion of opportunity for, and security of the American people.
In the case of Nigeria, the original defect in our founding vision is historical. As you are all aware, Nigeria came about as an amalgamation of different protectorates by the British in 1914. That process was for the administrative convenience of a colonial project that was first and foremost a trading concern. Subsequently, a political veneer was spread over it through a series of negotiations among factions of the emergent educated national elite clamouring for independence. What the British ceded in 1960 was therefore a complex outcome of negotiated settlements among Nigerian elite representing first and foremost their respective regional and ethnic interests.
There was no “pan Nigerian interest” or “pan Nigerian Agenda”. There was no “CONNECTED VISION”
The founding vision of Nigeria at independence was essentially one of a multi-ethnic nation first and foremost. But this founding vision was devoid of far reaching integrative economic, political, social and
moral elements for the future of such a diverse polity. There seemed to be a belief then that independence from colonial rule was the urgent paramount issue. The refinement of a national ideal and vision would follow along the way. This never happened as the aggressive pursuit of regional interests quickly followed after independence. At best, each of the original three (and later four) regions pursued its fairly independent ideals, targets, goals and aspirations. This accounts for the different levels of development that were witnessed among the regions before the military interventions and the civil war of 1966-70.
This original haziness in what constitute the overriding national vision has constantly plagued our national development in nearly every sphere.
My key observation here and operating thesis therefore is that a nation can only endure if it is founded on an integrated and comprehensive vision (connected vision). Nigeria unfortunately missed that opportunity at inception. This original ‘sin’ has multiplied and contributed to the ever so frequent quest for a new nation founded on a new vision.
Nations unfortunately are not like buildings. No matter how beautiful and magnificent a building is, it is possible and easy to evacuate, demolish and replace it with a completely new and more magnificent
one, to serve a totally different purpose. But, it is not so with nations. The critical difference is nations contain people who cannot be emptied out to make way for a new nation. The closest of demolition
of national foundations to build something new is with peaceful or violent revolutions. After the collapse of the old Soviet Union and the demolition of the Berlin Wall, we are all witnesses to what has become of nations re-invented under ideological revolutions. We do not want to go in that direction if we are to find viable answers to the questions that are today nagging most Nigerians.
Therefore, nations can ill afford the luxury of self-demolition and re-invention. Instead, nations renew themselves through a process of systematic reform and periodic renewal through appropriate democratic transformations.
On the matter of corrective vision, corporations are luckier than nations. A corporation can change its board and management, re-brand itself, redefine its vision and map for itself a new mission. It can
even be acquired or acquire other corporations for healthier growth. There is the probability of success that with better management, from the ashes of the old corporation, something new and more profitable will emerge. This is the spirit and guiding principle behind the reform and repositioning we are championing in NIMASA. Close to ten years of the existence of NIMASA in its current structure, we are in
the process of refreshing our vision and mission, we have a new Board and a visionary management, it offers the rare opportunity to re-invent that regulatory agency and reposition it as the most efficient,
effective and responsive regulatory agency in Africa, advancing Nigeria’s maritime goals.
However, it is pertinent at this juncture to point out an obvious fact. The success of nations in the race for development is not solely accounted for by the soundness of their founding vision, just like the
success of corporations are not determined by its vision and mission statement alone. There is an interplay of critical factors that separates successful nations from those that continued to struggle on
the development ladder. In the race for the top of the development index, age and longevity do not necessarily confer superior development. While some old nations like Greece and Egypt have
continued to struggle with the key indices of development, relatively new nation states like South Korea, Singapore and Botswana have emerged as highly successful economically and even politically. Let us
now identify some of the key factors that enable nations transform their founding vision into roaring success.
Some form of participatory government and inclusive political institutions is the commonest requirement for national development. At the bottom of this assertion is the understanding that a nation cannot leave out any segment of its populace in the decisions that govern their very lives. Divergent cultures and histories have made it expedient to accept ‘appropriate’ democracy as a term to denote the adoption by individual nation forms of participatory governance that is appropriate to their circumstance in order to carry their people along the path of national development.
While western countries have insisted on liberal multi party democracy as the best form of government, other major economies like China and Russia have adopted quasi-autocratic form of democracy to enlist
popular participation in national affairs and development. There are also countries where great developmental strides have been made within the context of monarchical governments with traditional ways of engineering legitimacy and popular participation.
Whatever the form of government, there is no disagreement as to what constitutes good governance. The principles of accountability, transparency, observance of the rule of law and basic freedoms remain
fundamental to any definition of good governance. But the ultimate determinant of good governance is the extent to which such government meets the basic needs of the greatest majority of its people.
In recent years, a new overriding challenge has taken the center stage in the assessment of governments all over the world. It is the challenge of global inequality. With the triumph of the West and the open market economic format, countries have woken up to find themselves overwhelmed by glaring inequality among their citizens.  In the US, the gap between the top 2% of the population who own literally everything and the rest of the population has become glaring and very embarrassing. Addressing inequality has emerged as one of the top challenges of governments all over the world. Governments are now challenged to adopt smarter policies to reduce inequality through adjustments in the structure of opportunities and the provision of wider access to the basic necessities of life.
The quest for more accountable governance all over the world has led the international community to recognize illicit financial flows through corruption as a major obstacle to the attainment of good
governance. It is also one factor that has increased inequality within individual national societies. Corruption is extractive and exploitative by nature. Corruption does not create the incentives
needed for people to give their best, innovate and be resourceful.
The more successful countries have instituted very tough anti-corruption measures to detect and punish corrupt practices through appropriate legislation and the judiciary. In this regard, it is not surprising that some of the fastest growing countries like Singapore, Rwanda and Botswana also happen to have the toughest anti-corruption regimes in the world.
This is one area where there is a growing national consensus in Nigeria that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has displayed unusual courage. There are divergent views as to the
effectiveness of current measures but many agree that it required a lot of courage to make a start. It is hoped that the Nigerian public will appreciate the significance of this effort in the overall improvement of the quality of governance in the country.
Outgoing US President Barack Obama once declared in Ghana that Africa does not need more strong men but strong institutions. At the back of that assertion is the realization that in most African countries, the institutions of state remain relatively weak while leaders often violate them and rule according to their whims. This is true in some African countries such as Zimbabwe as it is true in South American
countires like Colombia and Asian countries like North Korea amongst others. Yet it is common knowledge that advanced democracies of the world rely on the integrity of their institutions to preserve order and ensure the survival of the state and society.
If our judiciary does not have integrity, then all we can expect from the courts would be judgments retailed for cash instead of justice dispensed according to law. If our military institutions do not have
inbuilt service integrity, we will continue to have political generals while avoidable insurgency rages and diminishes our national sovereignty. The same argument can be made in respect of our major
national institutions to highlight their current shortcomings as a way of extrapolating on our negative development indices.
In general when leaders tamper with the integrity of the institutions of state, they render those institutions weak and subject to constant manipulation by successive administrations. This complicates the problem of governance and policy instability.
The economic policies of any nation, in order to endure, must take into consideration its peculiar realities of geography, natural and human resources. Such policy must be a general framework which is
however sufficiently flexible to survive the periodic shocks and bumps in an ever changing global economic environment. Ordinarily, Nigeria’s originating economic policy framework should have from the mid 1960s included the element of diversification from oil by retaining the initial pride of place which agriculture enjoyed in our immediate post-colonial period. Even in the context of the so called oil boom, the process of diversification into other lucrative areas like tourism, solid minerals and human capital development should have begun actively from 1970. These did not happen, hence the consequences we are experiencing today.
On the contrary, countries like the Gulf Arab states saw their oil wealth as a source of capital for the development of alternative economies hence they embarked on aggressive infrastructure development, tourism development and promotion and savings for difficult times. Countries like United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are among the most resilient economies in both the Middle East and the world.
Every nation’s greatest asset base and resource pool remains its people. The development of the capacities and capabilities of people is perhaps the greatest investment any nation can make. Education is the time-tested mechanism for galvanizing the latent power of a nation to transform its environment and development its economy. Every educated citizen is an engine of development because he/she is a
creator, an inventor, a thinker, a technician, an engineer or just an enlightened citizen fully aware of their rights in an orderly society governed by the rule of law.
Lee Kwan Yew, the visionary leader of independent Singapore placed human capacity development as his number one priority to grow the new nation. His defining economic policy is arguably uncompressing
standards for a universally accessible, top flight public education system- astutely identifying human capital as Singapore’s key competitive advantage, supplemented with rigorous application of meritocracy (www.bbc.com/rishnuvarathan).
Natural resource based economies like ours remain vulnerable because we calculate our national survival in barrels of oil and cubic meters of gas. On the contrary, human resource based economies like those of the advanced economies depend more on the power of the human mind to create an alternative economy that is largely independent of the vagaries in the international prices of natural resources and extractive produce. Japan and Germany for instance do not produce a barrel of oil but they rank among the top five leading economies of the world. They depend instead on the ingenuity of the trained human mind in science and technology to dominate a sizeable portion of the world market in finished products especially, machines and IT products, which every economy needs to thrive.
You will notice that I have deliberately placed the importance of natural resources last among the factors required for national development.  The point is that this is one factor that can easily be
dispensed with. The greater majority of successful nation states do not have mineral resources. They may have agricultural resources but this requires the application of labour and capital to amount to
anything. Singapore which got independence in 1965 was an Island without any natural resources to call its own but today is an economic wonder.
In most cases, countries that rely on extractive industries for their economies to survive have suffered from what has come to be called the resource curse. The over dependence on royalties and rents from
extractive industries has been recognized as the cause of rampant corruption, lazy and unproductive bureaucracies, emphasis on imports for consumption, lavish spending on luxuries by the elite of
politically exposed persons and slow development of manufacturing and creative industries.
There are few exceptions to this law of negativity. In Africa, Botswana for instance has defied the resource curse through an original vision that saw diamonds first as a natural source of capital
for national development. Botswana’s founding fathers were themselves very frugal individuals who never mistook national wealth for their personal empires. That tradition has largely endured, making Botswana a shining example of economic growth and good governance in Africa.
After 50 years of independence, Botswana is today a rich nation by African standards and is globally regarded as middle-income country.
For the first 35 years of its national history, it had the fastest GDP growth rate in the entire world (sometimes in excess of 14% per annum). Its per capita income has jumped from $50 to $7,000, putting
it at the top of middle class countries. Botswana has literacy rate of over 87%. The country ranks number 2 among countries in Africa that provide for the social needs of its citizens and is at the top of
countries with the lowest corruption scores in Africa. The country has never suffered either a recession or hyperinflation since independence.
We can contrast this with the record of nearby Angola, which has the same diamonds and oil. Angola has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world and an extreme poverty rate of over 50%.
As we continue with the national quest for answers to the great the questions of our time, I urge that we do a self- assessment of where we stand as nation. The factors that have been identified are put
forward as a guide for this assessment.  The solutions we endlessly seek would seem right at our doorsteps. But there is a great amount of political will to do what is necessary. As the present administration in the country battles to correct the ills of the past, it is hope that the political leadership of the country will muster the will to address the deficits in our national development strategy to date.
Thank you for listening. [myad]

President Muhammadu Buhari has vowed that he would never allow budget padding, which just entered the nation’s budgetry lexicon in 2016 to happen again in his government.
“I am waiting for the 2017 Budget to be brought to us in Council. Any sign of padding anywhere, I will remove it.”

President Buhari, who received in audience today, Friday, members of the Governance Support Group (GSG), led by Hon. Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, lamented what he called the distortions in 2016 appropriation bill, in which series of rogue projects and figures were injected into the financial document.

Emphasizing that such thing  won’t happen to next year’s budget, President Muhammadu Buhari confessed again that since 1975, when he served the country as governor, oil minister, head of state, and Chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), he had never heard the word ‘padding’ till the 2016 Budget.

Buhari said that his government stands by its tripod campaign promises of securing the country, reviving the economy, and fighting corruption, but lamented that some people are deliberately turning blind eyes to prevailing realities in the country.

“They don’t want to reflect on the situation in which we are, economically. They want to live the same way; they simply want business as usual,” he said.

On violence that attended rerun elections in the country, President Buhari said: “I agonized over the elections in Kogi, Bayelsa and Rivers states. We should have passed the stage in which people are beheaded, and killed because of who occupies certain offices. If we can’t guarantee decent elections, then we have no business being around. Edo State election was good, and I expect Ondo State election to be better.”
Speaking on the anti-corruption cases before the courts, the President said he believed the cleansing currently going on “will lead to a better judiciary. When people are sentenced, Nigerians will believe that we are serious.”

President Buhari equally told his guests that the progress being made in agriculture and exploitation of solid minerals “gives a lot of hope. Our grains go up to Central African Republic, to Burkina Faso, but they can’t buy all the grains harvested this year. And next season should be even better. We will focus on other products like cocoa, palm oil, palm kernel, along with the grains. We can start exporting rice in 18 months, and we are getting fertilizers and pesticides in readiness for next year.”

Speaking on behalf of members of GSG, Hon. Nwajiuba said that the government had succeeded to a large extent on the security and anti-corruption fronts, adding that the group was positive that the economy would soon experience a turnaround, “as the government is working very hard in that direction.”

The group said the biggest constituency of the President was the poor and lowly, and thus recommended what it calls “a social re-armament of the poor.” [myad]