| Jonathan will deliver –
Ume-Ezeoke
The Sun Publishing
Wednesday,
March 9, 2011
The Special Adviser to the President on Relations with Civil Society
Chineme Ume-Ezeoke recently addressed a rally of Civil Society Organisations
who gathered to demonstrate their commitment to President Goodluck
Jonathan’s administration. He spoke with ADEWALE SANYAOLU
Excerpts:
The CSO’s appear to be impressed with Jonathan’s administration,
but in all sincerity would you say the president is performing?
Obviously Yes. The administration of President Goodluck Jonathan
if you remember was ushered in with hysteria because the people
were full of expectations and belief that his leadership will give
a new sense of direction in all areas of development.
There is empirical evidence on ground since he assumed office that
our economy is on the threshold of recovery.
In a broader perspective, Nigeria as has been admitted generally,
is witnessing massive investment in critical infrastructure which
has a multiplier effect in the economy.
If you take for instance, the Oil and Gas Industry, we have attained
stability in the supply and distribution of petroleum products.
The downstream sector of the petroleum Industry has sustained the
tempo in supply mechanism and the local refineries are improving
in their refining capacity.
This has translated into robust attainment of improved business
activities especially within the Small and Medium Scale Enterprises
scheme of the manufacturing sector.
Government is also taking giant strides to maintain stability in
the power sector and the public presentation of the power sector
roadmap points to the overall strategy to improve on power generation
and distribution.
Currently there is great improvement in the power supply system
and a good number of Independent Power Projects (IPP’s) are
being undertaken across the Country and majority of them would come
on stream soon.
One other area that this administration deserves commendation is
the attention being given to the agricultural sector. This government
is committed to attaining
food security by expanding funding of the agricultural sector which
will also in turn create more jobs.
Government is systematically divesting the economy and emphasis
today is shifting to Non Oil Sector. The mono-economy which the
Country has been running over the decades is being addressed in
stronger terms.
You seem to be disposed to Jonathan, do you think he has geniune
commitment to deliver?
If you carry out a post-mortem examination of the Presidents accomplishments
within this short period and if you also review his policies and
other statements of intent you will obviously come to terms with
the reality associated with his vision.
Nigeria’s economy is recovering very fast and the President
has placed this recovery pattern on a pedestal of continuous growth.
When you measure this enthusiasm of the people toward him there
is this clear indication and there are real signs betokening better
things to come.
To state the obvious the Country is bereft of all aspects of development
and Nigerians are yearning for a complete turnaround of events.
The focus of the present administration is to create the enabling
environment for socio-economic activities to thrive.
Like I have said in the past, I believe sincerely that President
Goodluck Jonathan will deliver on his promises.
But again the CSO’s have agitated that gov should focus on
physical dev of infrastructures, how can you assess this?
This Administration has demonstrated the zeal to put in place adequate
infrastructure to support growth of critical sectors of the Economy.
The policy direction of Government is principally aimed at providing
continuous boost to structural development of various components
of the Economy.
Government has been faithful in pursuing key aspects of the development
agenda as provided in the vision 2020-20 blue print.
The basic ingredients of growth which is hinged on social
development strategies, for instance the Inland Water way development
and the dredging of the River Niger have been vigorously pursued.
One of the important areas we should appreciate is the meticulous
approach in the turn-around of infrastructure in the Niger Delta.
The Amnesty project essentially provided a leap in the development
agenda in the Niger Delta which has brought stability in the Energy
and Petroleum sectors of the Economy.
The Civil Society Organizations (CSO’s) have been supportive
by engaging the local people in various capacity building programmes.
Agitations by CSO’s challenging Government to create more
opportunities for the people as you observed, in my mind, are a
function of Social Responsibility.
I regard it as a call to duty and they are probably being anxious
and to let out the feeling that Government should not relent.
Because this Government welcomes criticisms and has a good working
relationship with Non State Actors (NSA’s) they have put their
shoulders to the wheel to start working very hard in support of
Government actions
The country witnessed a lot of civil society activity in 2010,
how receptive was your office to these events?
Yes the year 2010 was quite challenging and events that shaped
the polity provided the Civil Society Community several opportunities
to strengthen their partnership with government and the overall
outcome was quite rewarding.
Essentially, the position of the Civil Society Organizations prior
to the swearing in of President Goodluck Jonathan as Acting President
and the transformation after he became the substantive President
was commendable.
The Civil Society Organizations no doubt helped to strengthen the
polity and indeed worked tirelessly towards the smooth transition
and stability in the socio-economic growth being currently experienced.
I am also equally impressed with the CSO’s involvement in
the elections that held in many states last year.
The office nominated a number of Civil Society Organizations to
monitor Local Government elections, in many states where they held
and I am elated with the quality of their reports which have been
forwarded to the various stakeholders working in areas of good governance.
So I am confident and optimistic that they will play pivotal role
during the coming general elections.
On the part of the office, we maintained our pattern of routine
consultation with Civil Society Organizations.
Also in my determined effort to build capacity of our CSOS, my office
opened some channels of communication with International Development
Partners.
As a matter of fact many Nigerian Non-Governmental Organization
(NGOS) benefited from this window of opportunity which the office
threw open, and the gesture was well appreciated.
To give an example, I am glad to state here that some of them, through
efforts of this office participated in the Indian Technical and
Economic Coordination (ITEC | SCAAP) training programme and this
bolstered their experience in many areas of good governance and
advocacy.
The office also made strong representations to the American Embassy
to facilitate the International Leadership Training program for
Nigerian Civil Society Organization in the United States (US) and
we have assurances that some of them will attend the program this
year.
Again, the office discussed similar training issues with the government
of the People’s Republic of China through its embassy here
in Nigeria . Towards the end of last year I received the Chinese
Economic and Commercial Counselor, who reciprocated my earlier visit
to him where all these issues were sealed.
In fact, we agreed on a number of exchange programmes with emphasis
on Civil Society training and there is willingness on their part
to build capacity of our Civil Society Organization through funded
overseas training program.
During the year in review also, the office had an extensive discussion
with the counselor migration affairs of the embassy of Austria to
support our efforts in training our Civil Society and both offices
are currently exploring areas of need and by this year we shall
come out with a framework in that regard.
What were the highpoints of your office engagement with the CSOS?
The office recorded some fundamental achievements in the area of
capacity building for some Civil Society Organizations from the six
geo-political zones of the country especially in the area of public
procurement.
We actually partnered with the World Bank, the Bureau for Public
Procurement, Institute of Chartered Supply Purchasing Management
and other stakeholders to execute this training exercise.
We are very happy with the level of support from the CSOS who demonstrated
high level of enthusiasm throughout the programme.
The Public Procurement Act 2007 is important to National Development
and that is why we embraced the opportunity offered by the institutional
support we received from the World Bank.
The highpoint of all these engagements is the advocacy visits to
states like Lagos, Edo, Anambra, Sokoto , Niger etc .
These sensitization visits which involved Civil Society Organizations
were part of the overall framework of the Public Procurement training
programme.
The main objective of the visits was to give impetus to the expected
Advocacy Campaign of the CSO’s already training to encourage
the states to fast-track the passage of the Public Procurement Law
in those states.
Beside the advocacy campaign in States, the training programme produced
a crop of enlightened CSO’s that are observing and reporting
on public procurement processes in Federal Ministries, Departments
and Agencies (MDA’s).
You mentioned involvement of CSO’s in election monitoring,
what is their level of participation in the voters registration
exercise?
The office is committed to enthroning transparency in all facets
of governance, and we are happy with the level of support from various
government agencies.
The voter’s registration exercise is very crucial to the overall
conduct of the elections and that is why we encourage all CSO’s
currently relating with us to apply to INEC for accreditation to
enable them observe the exercise. There has been some talk that
my office is accrediting CSO’s but that is simply not true.
INEC is the only recognized body by law that can do that, so the
issue of my office accrediting CSO’s does not arise.
We are mindful of the efforts of INEC and the Presidency to produce
a comprehensive voter’s registration data, so we are encouraging
CSO’s as major stakeholders to observe the exercise.
Certainly, the CSO’s will be engaged in the main elections
because Non State Actors (NSA’s) play crucial role in any
election and it is a global practice and we have to adopt and sustain
it to show how serious we are in that regard.
Looking at the multi-sectoral problems of the country, which particular
area will your office channel its energy?
Our democracy can only function and endure when all key components
of economic growth and social stability is supported and sustained.
This can only be achieved when all processes of development are
driven with a good number of Civil Society participation.
So the policy we are canvassing is equitable participation of Civil
Society Organizations in all processes of development.
We have Civil Society working in different thematic areas like community
health, environment, public procurement, legislative advocacy and
poverty alleviation and so on.
The important factor here is for us to establish a common ground
for positive engagement and that is what the office is striving
to put together.
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