Vice-President Namadi Sambo on Sunday
said efforts were being made to wheel about 20,000 megawatts of
electricity for the country to improve power transmission.
A statement by the vice-president’s
spokesman, Mr. Umar Sani, quoted Sambo as saying this during a meeting
he held with members of the Nigerian-Canadian Association in Toronto,
Canada.
Sambo said to achieve the feat, the government had last week approved the release of $3.7bn for the power sector.
“The Federal Government last week
approved the sum of $3.7bn to improve power transmission so as to wheel
20,000MW,” the statement quoted him as saying.
Sambo told the gathering that the present administration was committed to the provision of necessary infrastructure.
He added that efforts were being
intensified in the areas of power supply, transportation, aviation,
Information and Communication Technology, agriculture and the provision
of affordable healthcare services.
He also said the administration was addressing educational advancement issues with the provision of good governance.
He called on Nigerians in the Diaspora to come home and be part of the new development.
Sambo appreciated their contributions to
national development, adding that it was in recognition of the
contributions that a Diaspora bond of N1bn was set up.
The vice-president urged them to key into such a laudable initiative.
Earlier, the association’s President,
Mr. Fabian Nwoha, had expressed the desire of the body to contribute
positively to the country’s development.
Nwoha, however, said members were holding back due to the reported negative incidences and other vices in Nigeria.
He noted that with the new development
being witnessed in the country, citizens in the Diaspora had confidence
in the ability of the government to deliver on its promises.
He used the occasion to remind the
government of its promise to provide a consular office in Toronto to
help ease emerging diplomatic issues.
The Nigerian High Commissioner to
Canada, Dr. Ojo Madueke, said the association represented the future
that would import their talent and know-how into the country.
Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Tuesday,stated that President Goodluck
Jonathan-led administration will produce results in 2013 even as she claimed that the year is going to be a game changer and turning point
for the nation. Dr Okonjo-Iweala who was a guest on Amanpour, said this
at the Christiane Amanpour current affairs programme aired on CNN.
The minister further stated that that the Jonathan administration is
already producing results even as the macroeconomics stability has been
restored.
Africa’s most populous nation, Nigeria, is full of promise. But fulfilling that promise is often a struggle.
Plagued by corruption and mismanagement, the resource-rich country has a poverty rate of over 50%.
Maternal mortality is shockingly high and more than half of Nigerians
don’t have access to electricity, according to the World Bank.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is the country’s finance minister and the former
World Bank official has been lauded as the reformer Nigeria needs.
But she too isn’t immune from Nigeria’s problems – her own mother was
kidnapped for a terrifying five days before being released.
President Goodluck Jonathan promised to address corruption in the
country. Nevertheless, a former governor – an ally of Jonathan – has
been convicted of embezzling million in public funds and has since been
pardoned.
“Nigeria does have a problem with corruption and so do many other
countries,” Okonjo-Iweala told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an interview
that aired Tuesday. “I don’t like the fact that when people mention the
name Nigeria the next thing they mention is corruption.”
Technology could be the answer the problem, Okonjo-Iweala believes.
“We must build electronic platforms. We must distance people from the
money. These things were recommended by the world bank and IMF,” she
told Amanpour. “We are doing them.”
President Jonathan is calling for the judiciary, the legislative and
the executive arm to meet together about this issue all together for the
time first Okonjo-Iweala said.
“Because even if you catch somebody, if they go to courts and they
are let off lightly the president can’t do anything about that. The
judicial system also has to be strengthened,” she said.
“This is a country of 170 million people; 99.9 percent of them are
honest, hard-working citizens who just want to get on with their lives,”
Okonjo-Iweala said, proudly. “And they want a government that delivers
for them.”
Oil should be Nigeria’s saving grace, but oil leakage causes a significant drain on the economy.
“We are still a poor country,” she admitted. “We can’t afford any leakage.”
On tap of that, there is immense oil theft, which Okonjo-Iweala puts
at 150,000 barrels stolen a day. She compared the situation to Mexico,
which sees tens of thousands of barrels stolen each day.
“We need them to treat this oil like stolen diamonds. The blood
diamonds,” she said – calling on the international community for
assistance. “Make it blood oil. Help us so those people don’t have a
market to sell this stuff.”
Nigeria is also plagued by problems with its electrical grid.
When the country’s president last appeared on CNN, he told Amanpour,
“That is one area that Nigerians are quite pleased with the government,
that’s a commitment to improve power. It’s working. So if you are saying
something different, I’m really surprised.”
That interview caused an uproar in Nigeria, with many of the county’s
very active social media citizens taking to Twitter and Facebook to
voice their frustrations with the power grid and President Jonathan’s
comments.
Okonjo-Iweala said the power problems all come down to previous government’s lack of investment.
“If you’ve neglected a sector for that long, you’ve not invested,
you’ve not even maintained your basic facilities, it’s not going to
happen that fast. It takes time,” she said.
While Nigerians often complain of power outages – telling CNN they
often have to use generators to watch the news channel – Okonjo-Iweala
maintained there has been improvement.
“That month, when you interviewed the president,” she said, referring
to Amanpour’s previous interview of Jonathan, “the polls showed,
independently, scientifically that they are in technical partnership
with dialogue. That 54 percent of Nigerians felt there was some
improvement,” she told Amanpour.
“Nigeria is not the only country. Almost every developing country has
a problem with power, as you know. India has it. South Africa has it.
South Africa is far better off because they’ve invested much more.
But many developing countries, even China, they are struggling with keeping up with infrastructure,” she said.
Okonjo-Iweala said that the administration has accepted that the government is not the best place to run the power sector.
“If we want this country and this economy to do better, we just have
to get out. And Nigeria is pursuing one of the most sweeping
privatization programs in any country in the world,” she said. “We are
selling off everything.”
That said, the lights even went out on President Jonathan during a
speech he gave a speech in front of cameras just this past Easter day.
I couldn't upload the video because of the network here. You can download the video here
http://goo.gl/HvIm0
