The presidency yesterday reviewed its performance in the year 2013 and gave itself as pass mark, saying the activities of insurgents are restricted to only two states unlike in the past.
Senior special assistant to the President on public affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, who stated this in a statement yesterday, said those that use the security challenges in some parts of the country as the only barometer to measure President Jonathan’s performance are not being fair to the President considering the fact that the war on insurgency and terrorism has never been a quick fix anywhere in the world.
The presidency while reminding the public that bombings and killings by insurgents happened in Kano, Kogi, Niger, Yobe, Born, Sokoto, Adamawa and the Federal Capital Territory in 2011 and 2012, said the activities of these terrorists have been largely contained and restricted to one or two states in 2013.
“Yes, we are not where we hope to be but it will be sheer mischief to insist that we are where we were or as some wickedly say we are worse than we were. Definitely, their position is not based on facts and so should be ignored by Nigerians” Okupe stated
The presidency described the out -going year 2013 as a year unprecedented policy decisions were taken and major projects executed for the good of Nigerians in spite of pockets of distractions.
He said contrary to what the opposition parties are saying, Nigeria under President Goodluck Jonathan has moved significantly forward in many sectors than it was in 2011.
The Presidential aide said the transformation which has taken place in the economy, trans-portation, agriculture, power and other critical sectors are the routes which all developed Nations had taken before now but which unfortunately had not been taken by Nigeria before now.
“It is an incontrovertible fact that Nigeria under Jonathan has reduced its food imports by about forty percent and increased its local production of rice, cassava, sorghum, cotton and cocoa in percentages ranging from 25 to 56 in the last two years. For the first time since independence, the Nigerian agricultural sector is attracting unprecedented Foreign Direct Investment. Over the past 2 years, the sector has attracted $ 4 billion in private sector executed letters of commitment to invest in agricultural value chains, from food crops, to export crops, fisheries and livestock. The number of private sector seed companies grew from 10 to 70 within one year. Over $ 7 billion of investments from Nigerian businesses have been made to develop new fertilizer manufacturing plants, which will make Nigeria the largest producer and exporter of fertilizers in Africa. It is also noteworthy that agricultural lending as a share of total bank lending has risen from two percent to six percent in two years,” he said.
via nigerianeye
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