Acting President Yemi Osinbajo has said that the president Muhammadu Buhari led administration inaugurated on May 29, 2015 spent much of its first year in office in 2016, clearing the inherited “mess” from the government of former president Goodluck Jonathan.
Osinbajo also said that though the present regime has recorded a milestone in its efforts to reposition Nigeria, it is should be noted that overnight solutions to the numerous challenges of the country were not possible. The acting president’s assertions were contained in his message to mark the second anniversary of the administration on Monday. Enumerating most of the gains achieved so far, Osinbajo said that the government has delivered on its promise of restoring the hitherto lost country’s security especially in the north east where the dreaded Boko haram insurgents held sway before the advent of their regime. He also stated that the government was on course in the fight against corruption, revealing the possibility of creating special courts for corruption cases. The acting president also stated that the government had rolled out different programmes and policies to revitalize the economy and create more jobs for the teeming unemployed graduates.
According to him, these included the Social Investment Programmes, the ease of doing business, the executive orders he signed recently amongst others. Osinbajo who also prayed for the quick recovery of president Buhari assured Nigerians of a better future, saying that the administration would not exclude any part of the country in this developmental strides. The speech runs in full: “Dear Nigerians, I bring you good wishes from President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, who as we all know is away from the country on medical vacation. “Today marks the second anniversary of our assumption of office. We must thank the Almighty God not only for preserving our lives to celebrate this second anniversary, but for giving us hope, strength and confidence as we faced the challenges of the past two years. “Our administration outlined three specific areas for our immediate intervention on assumption of office: these were Security, Corruption and the Economy. “In the Northeast of our country, the terrorist group Boko Haram openly challenged the sovereignty and continued existence of the state, killing, maiming, and abducting, causing the displacement of the largest number of our citizens in recent history. Beyond the North East they extended their mindless killings, as far away as Abuja, Kano And Kaduna. “But with new leadership and renewed confidence our gallant military immediately began to put Boko Haram on the back foot.
We have restored broken-down relations with our neighbours, Chad, Cameroon and Niger – allies without whom the war against terror would have been extremely difficult to win. We have re-organized and equipped our Armed Forces, and inspired them to heroic feats; we have also revitalized the regional Multinational Joint Task Force, by providing the required funding and leadership. “The positive results are clear for all to see. In the last two years, close to one million displaced persons have returned home. 106 of our daughters from Chibok have regained their freedom after more than two years in captivity, in addition to the thousands of other captives who have since tasted freedom. “Schools, hospitals and businesses are springing back to life across the Northeast, especially in Borno State, the epicentre of the crisis. Farmers are returning to the farms from which they fled in the wake of Boko Haram. Finally, our people are getting a chance to begin the urgent task of rebuilding their lives. “Across the country, in the Niger Delta, and in parts of the North Central region, we are engaging with local communities, to understand their grievances, and to create solutions that respond to these grievances adequately and enduringly. “President Buhari’s New Vision for the Niger Delta is a comprehensive peace, security and development plan that will ensure that the people benefit fully from the wealth of the region, and we have seen to it that it is the product of deep and extensive consultations, and that it has now moved from idea to execution. Included in that New Vision is the long-overdue environmental clean-up of the Niger Delta beginning with Ogoni-land, which we launched last year. “More recent threats to security such as the herdsmen clashes with farmers in many parts of the country sometimes leading to fatalities and loss of livelihoods and property have also preoccupied our security structures.
We are working with State governments, and tasking our security agencies with designing effective strategies and interventions that will bring this menace to an end. We are determined to ensure that anyone who uses violence, or carries arms without legal authority is apprehended and sanctioned. “In the fight against corruption, we have focused on bringing persons accused of corruption to justice. We believe that the looting of public resources that took place in the past few years has to be accounted for. Funds appropriated to build roads, railway lines, and power plants, and to equip the military, that had been stolen or diverted into private pockets, must be retrieved and the culprits brought to justice. Many have said that the process is slow, and that is true, corruption has fought back with tremendous resources and our system of administration of justice has been quite slow. But the good news for justice is that our law does not recognize a time bar for the prosecution of corruption and other crimes, and we will not relent in our efforts to apprehend and bring corruption suspects to justice. We are also re-equipping our prosecution teams, and part of the expected judicial reforms is to dedicate some specific courts to the trial of corruption cases.
“We are also institutionalizing safeguards and deterrents. We have expanded the coverage of the Treasury Single Account (TSA). We have introduced more efficient accounting and budgeting systems across the Federal Government. We have also launched an extremely successful Whistleblower Policy. “The Efficiency Unit of the Federal Ministry of Finance has succeeded in plugging leakages amounting to billions of naira, over the last two years. We have ended expensive and much-abused fertilizer and petrol subsidy regimes.
No comments:
Post a Comment