JONATHAN HAS DELIVERED HIS PROMISES WITHIN 201 DAYS – ORONTO DOUGLAS
Within 201 days in office, President Goodluck Jonathan says he has kept to the promise of offering the country the best in three key areas of electoral reforms, electricity supply and energy security, the Senior Special Assistant on Research and Documentation, Oronto Douglas has said.
Douglas, at the inauguration of the northern zone of the 'Jonathan Project' listed the areas under the acronym of three Es also said the present leadership of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has been acknowledged as credible.
Douglas, a renowned Environment Rights Activist, stated that President Jonathan knew the problem of the country was getting the right leadership without which getting the right means of choosing credible people would continue to stall the progress of the country. He therefore, went for credible people to fashion out the means of getting our leaders, Douglas recalled.
'He ensures that those who will handle INEC must be people of integrity. When two people who had political leanings were appointed as INEC Commissioners and people pointed it out, he immediately changed them,' the Special Adviser said. Douglas said all the resources which the electoral commission demanded to make its work easier had been released to it, adding that the maxim of free and fair polls had been so important to the President that since May 6, when he assumed power he had used the expression 1,646 times.
On electricity, Douglas said the President had so far built on the efforts of late President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua and was steadily moving the country towards self-sufficiency as there was a steady addition of more megawatts as well as the building of new transmission line to evacuate generated power. He admitted that there was so much money being spent on the power sector but reminded the audience that the grid in the country was built with the population of 70 million in mind but since then, the population had doubled without a corresponding increase in power facilities, hence it would take more to update.
On energy security, he said the Niger Delta was the host of resources that the country relies on to carry out its internal and external obligations hence peace in the Niger Delta means steady power supply and fuels. He added that ensuring the resolution of all conflicts within the region through implementation of amnesty programme was a way to ensure that there was no interruption in energy security.
Douglas regretted that the value system of education had been lost, a reason he said the President would on December 20, in Lagos launch a programme 'Bring Back the Book Project ' that would restore the values Nigeria use to have in the educational sector.
He said the project would emphasise the values in acquiring knowledge and restore the reading culture of the people against the practice of get-rich- quick without proffering solutions to the problems of the country. He also said reforms were afoot as the practice in the past whereby fertilisers meant for farmers and its subsidy ended up in the pockets of rich men which in turn, impacted negatively on the sector and insisted that Nigeria would attain its full potentials in agriculture under Jonathan.