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Use our pull-down menus to find more stories OR subscribers use AllAfrica's Nigeria: How to Attain Vision 2020 Goal, By Rights Advocates This Page This Page on this article The Publisher's Site (Lagos) 6 October 2008 Posted to the web 7 October 2008 Cosmas Attayi-Elaigu President Umar Yar'Adua's vision for a better Nigeria is encapsulated in his seven-point agenda. Top on that agenda is the desire to improve the energy sector of the economy through a general overhaul that will ensure a more efficient management of the country's oil and gas resources. The government also seeks to improve the electricity sub-sector since epileptic power supply is a main obstruction to the nation's growth. Also in the president's vision is the need for a secure Nigeria that will guarantee the safety of life, property and investment. With insecurity worsening in the Niger Delta region, coupled with daily cases of armed robbery, assassinations and thuggery, analysts see this agenda as crucial to the country. For many, the recent creation of a Ministry to tackle the issues of the Niger Delta is a right step in the right direction. The fourth challenge of the government is the desire to increase the wealth of the country, which currently is more than 70 per cent dependent on petroleum products. Another focal strand of the agenda is education, where government plans to turn things around to reverse the current sliding standards of teaching and learning. Observers agree on the need for a special focus on this sector as it is getting worse in spite of liberalisation in the ownership and management of education. They say it is still afflicted with the dearth of competent and well remunerated teachers, while confusion reigns over early education and funding. The administration also hopes to work toward a more reliable transport sector. Here, government has continued to harp on plans to revive the rail system and dredge some rivers to lessen the pressure on roads. It is also interested in land reforms that will reverse the regime of arbitrariness in the acquisition and ownership of land in the country. Currently, land ownership is vested in the hands of government. To prepare grounds for meeting the agenda, Dr Mansur Ahmed, the Director-General, Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), said recently that government would soon launch the harmonised National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS). NEEDS has been transformed into the National Development Plan. According to him, four development plans will be implemented between now and 2020. The first will be from 2008-2011, which will fuse the harmonised NEEDS II and the seven-point agenda, while the second, from 2011-2015, is designed to attain the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Ahmed said that the period between 2015 and 2020 would be used to raise the growth level of the economy. He told journalists that the 14th edition of the NESG summit, scheduled for October with "The Race to 2020: The Realities, The Possibilities" as the theme, would focus on the harmonisation. With many of such laudable visions left to rot on government shelves, analysts wonder if the Yar'Adua vision will be any different. One such dream was the Vision 2010 planned in the late 1990s by the later military leader, Gen. Sani Abacha. With such an experience, skeptics take a hard look at Vision 20:2020 which aims at making Nigeria one of the top 20 economies in the world by 2020. One such skeptic is Mr. Emma Ezeazu, the Executive Director, Centre for the Development of Civil Society and the Secretary General for Alliance for Credible Elections. He told newsmen in Abuja recently that the success of the seven-point agenda and the ambition to transform the country into one of the 20 leading economies by 2020 depended on many factors. "I believe that with the determination of government, much can be done in that direction. But for now, there is no sign of efforts toward any monumental change. "Such an ambition requires the mobilisation of the entire society, including the private sector, toward commitment and high productivity," he said. Relevant Links Ezeazu argued that the collapse of the country's industrial sector and the recent findings from the National Assembly probes indicating large-scale corruption by government officials and contractors are bad signs. Page 1 of 2 1 AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over , plus more than , who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are . Share this on: | | | | | | Questions or Comments? . Read our . Today's Most Active Stories Most Read Most Commented Most Emailed
