OPINION - It’s mourning in Nigeria

By Nosa Igiebor

June 1, 2020

The Muhammadu Buhari administration exists in a parallel world, where alternative facts rule and reality is willfully distorted. Five years on, their Nigeria, according to them, has turned the corner. It is on the road to becoming “a shining city on a hill”, as President Ronald Reagan once described his United States of America. A million thanks to the ‘vision’ and ‘determination’ of Buhari for this phantom “shining city” we will have in the near future.

But their narrative of Nigeria on the up, despite the clearly incontestable evidence to the contrary, collides violently with our own reality. And the narrative is a confirmation that they live in a giant bubble that completely shuts out the true state of the nation.

It was Adolf Hitler, one of the baddest men the world has ever known, who elevated deception to a fine but very dark art. He said: “If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently, it will be believed.” That’s how he hoodwinked the Germans and led the country to a disastrous war that killed tens of millions of people and caused unprecedented destruction of most of Europe.

Yet it’s mourning in Nigeria. Even the rich and privileged are crying too. Not just the 100 million who now live in extreme poverty and don’t know when any relief will come their way. So, distorting the facts and bending the truth won’t change that reality.

It’s mourning in Nigeria. Even the rich and privileged are crying.

After all, Nigeria has had the dubious distinction of being the world’s poverty capital for three years in a row. And it is not likely to give up that title very soon. In any case, no other country is seriously challenging it for that special achievement.

Lai Mohammed, information and culture minister, and Femi Adesina, special adviser, media, started the beating of the numbingly familiar drums of triumph. However, they were not celebrating our Nigeria that the rest of us are crying over. They were, as usual, celebrating their Nigeria and their boss, the king whose aura – one that was contrived in the first place – has, very sadly but not surprisingly, diminished beyond any measure.

First to beat the drum was Adesina. Thursday, May 28, he issued a statement littered with inanities. He said, among other implausible things, that: “The three umbrella areas on which government based its interventionist agenda are security, reviving the economy (with particular emphasis on job creation, especially for the youths) and fighting corruption. In these three areas, where we are today cannot be compared with where we used to be.”

Nobody will dispute the fact that where we are now is not where we used to be. Just ask any Nigerian, no matter the social class, if we are better or worse off now than we were in 2015. The answer will unequivocally be that we all are worse off now after five years of the most desultory governance the country has ever experienced.

But the president’s men and fanatical supporters don’t know this or don’t want to know. Maybe they know but are pretending otherwise. Why would they tell the emperor that he has no clothes on when they’re benefiting from his nakedness?

Coming from their reality-distortion field, Lai Mohammed, who has acquired notoriety as champion of alternative facts, said this when he briefed the media last Friday: “With the bold and courageous leadership provided by the President, Nigeria is marching surely and steadily to join the comity of great nations. Change is never easy, and the birth of a new nation comes with pain.”

Wrong, Mohammed! Change is easy when it is deployed for the destruction of an already fragile nation. It’s far easier to destroy than build. And Buhari doesn’t have any history and experience of building anything, talk less of the country. What he has done since 2015 is taking a gigantic wrecking ball to the country’s foundation. He has done so through his nepotism, sectionalism, ethnic irredentism and comprehensive incompetence.

And this is not the first time he has brought the country to its knees. As a military dictator for 18 months (January 1984 – August 1985), he took over a bad situation and made it dangerously worse. He mismanaged the economy to a total shambles. And the people mourned too. His colleagues ended his wrecking ball of a regime and put the country out of its misery.

According to Mohammed and Adesina in their media briefing and statement respectively, Nigeria is more secure today than five years ago. Their audacious peddling of barefaced lies was, indeed, breathtaking. No matter how many times they indulge in bending the truth, we can’t escape being jolted by their mendacity, their lack of self-awareness and utter disregard for facts.

Around the same time they were saying we are more secure now, Governors Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State and Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State were in Aso Rock, pleading with the president to save their states from the deadly grip of Fulani militias known as bandits. The militias had killed over 74 people in parts of Sokoto state last Wednesday night. Before that latest incident of their gory saga of mindless blood shedding, the militias had attacked parts of Kaduna State, killing scores of people.

As the north-east continues to bleed from Boko Haram terrorism, the north-west is being terrorized by the militias. The governors are unable to do anything about it, and the people are helpless and more traumatized.

Senator Ibrahim Gobir, representing Sokoto East senatorial district, told The Punch recently that some parts of his constituency were completely controlled by the militias. He said the people now rely on Nigerien troops (Niger Republic soldiers) to protect them. “They come to our aid because they have some soldiers around the border towns, not too far from some of our villages. They are the people we now depend on to help us. The Nigerian army is not helping us…If we call (them) to come to our aid, they will come but they will not go after the bandits. They will complain that the weapons being used by the bandits are more sophisticated than theirs.”

Obviously, Senator Gobir lives in our Nigeria. And so do Tambuwal, El-Rufai and other governors and all the people in the region. Not in the parallel world of Buhari and his drum beaters, where there is imaginary security and Nigeria is marching to greatness.

The alleged complaint of Nigerian soldiers about their weapons and using same as an excuse not to engage the militias, speak to the uselessness of the president’s often repeated directive to the military and other security agencies to “deal” decisively with Boko Haram and the militias. The directive, always the same and contained in statements issued by the spokesmen, comes after every atrocity by the runaway killing machines of the terrorists.

The irony of the banality of the same directive, which nobody follows, is lost on the president’s men. Buhari has become a commander-in-chief whose command is ignored again and again. And nothing happens. The security situation in the country is getting worse every day. Yet we’re told that what we’re seeing and experiencing all the time and across the whole country is not real.

We have heard so much about the poor equipment the military is forced to use in the war against terrorism, and the lack of adequate funds to take care of the welfare of the troops. Yet the president approved the establishment of two brand new universities to satisfy the egos of the army and air force chiefs of staff. One in Biu, Borno State, Lt. General Tukur Buratai’s hometown, and the other in Bauchi, Air Marshall Sadique Abubakar’s city.

When the new universities were universally condemned as nothing but vanity projects and a slap on those fighting and dying on the frontlines, the jejune justification was that the country needs more tertiary institutions. And that most of the students already enrolled there are southerners.

The new universities are wasteful gifts to two senior military commanders who have failed woefully to tame the terrorists. Since the same Lai Mohammed first declared in 2015 that Boko Haram had been “technically defeated”, a range of excuses have been given for the terrorists’ capacity to fight on and do maximum damage to the military and create mayhem all over the north-east.

Boko Haram have been technically defeated, then technically degraded, and finally defeated. That is the ever changing claim by the government and the military commanders.* The state of the war and the timeline for bringing the terrorists to their knees keep changing. The number of Nigerians wasted by the terrorists, including killer herdsmen, in the last five years is over 30,000 and still counting.

Buhari had vowed to see off Boko Haram within three months of taking office. His presumed military experience as a retired general and former commander-in-chief was one of the attractive selling points of his candidacy then. Who better to mange the war against terrorism than the general?

As with everything about Buhari, the perception is a whole world apart from the reality. If he is incapable, as he has proven, of managing the war, how is he expected to manage the economy, an area where he’s a complete ignoramus?

Just as the timeline for taming the terrorists, that for solving Nigeria’s intractable power conundrum keeps getting shifted. In his media briefing last week, Mohammed gleefully announced that power supply would hit 11,000 megawatts by the end of 2023 when the Siemens intervention begins to kick in.

The government has signed an agreement with the German engineering conglomerate to invest in and manage the transmission and distribution chains of the power network. It’s yet to be seen if the agreement will come to fruition and really change the power supply dynamics. But the government is already setting impossible supply targets and inadvertently creating a false hope about the persistently poor situation.

In its 2015 manifesto of so many pie-in-the-sky promises, the APC had assured that power supply would increase to 25,000 megawatts by the end of Buhari’s first term and 40,000 in 2023. The average daily power supply in the last five years has been less than 4,000. That’s exactly where it was before the advent of the APC government.

In the three “umbrella areas” that Adesina crowed about, the government has failed when its performance is measured by all metrics. The country had the first economic recession in 25 years in 2016, and is now in the throes of another. Once again, Nigeria has become a heavy-debtor nation, with our external debt obligations racing towards $40 billion.

However deftly the facts are spinned, ignored or denied, it can’t alter the reality that Nigeria of 2020 is worse than it was in 2015. And the person responsible for the country’s current abject condition is Buhari. He is a president only in name.

While he loves the pomp and circumstances of his office and the sumptuous surroundings of Aso Rock villa, he has neither the energy nor the inclination and learning to do the job. That is why the country has become a failed state and the people are mourning their plight.

·        Source: TELL Magazine

Buhari orders review of White Paper on rationalisation of govt agencies (Inside, full text of president’s Democracy Day speech)

President Buhari.

President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered the review of the Federal Government White Paper on Rationalisation of Government Parastatals and Agencies to reduce the cost of governance in the country.

The president, who made this known during a broadcast to mark this year’s Democracy Day in Abuja on Friday, said the review had become imperative in view of the nation’s dwindling resources and rising cost of governance.

He said: “In the face of dwindling resources and rising cost of governance, I have authorised that the White Paper on the Rationalisation of Government Parastatals and Agencies  be reviewed for implementation.’’

Buhari, however, promised to continue to give all necessary support for ongoing reforms, designed to restore discipline, integrity and patriotism in the public service.

According to him, the public service of Nigeria remains the bedrock for the formulation and implementation of policies, programmes and projects in the country.

“This accounts for why it continues to evolve especially its new socio-economic challenges to emerge for government to address.

“I will continue to give all necessary support for the ongoing reforms designed to restore discipline, integrity and patriotism — the hallmark of the public service,’’ he said.

The president observed that his administration had continued to implement accountability and transparent policies through the Open Government Partnership and the transparency portal on financial transactions.

He said the government had also strengthened auditing and accountability mechanisms so as to ensure that rules and regulations were followed strictly.

He revealed that government’s anti-corruption agencies, including the EFCC and ICPC, had so far secured more than 1,400 convictions and recovered funds in excess of N800 billion.

“These monies are being ploughed into development and infrastructure projects,’’ he disclosed.

The Nigerian leader also pledged that his administration would continue to execute programmes and projects meant to uplift the quality of life of Nigerian youths.

He said: “Our youth population remains a source of strength in achieving development objectives.

“In this regard, we would continue to concentrate on developing their skills, providing them with opportunities to express their entrepreneurial research and industrial capacities as well as opportunities to take leadership positions in the service of the nation.”

He also reiterated the commitment of the Federal Government to the well being of people living with disabilities, saying that government’s concern for their welfare remained unwavering.

“Government recognises their contributions to development.

“I have directed that all relevant government agencies should pay sufficient attention to the peculiarities of persons with disabilities in the formulation and implementation of their policies and programmes, and are suitable to their employment,’’ he added. (NAN)

FULL TEXT - PRESIDENT MUHAMMADU BUHARI’s JUNE 12^TH 2020 DEMOCRACY DAY NATIONAL BROADCAST  

Fellow Nigerians,

1.     The 2020 celebration of Democracy Day marks 21 years of uninterrupted civil administration in our dear country. This day provides us an opportunity to reflect on our journey as a nation, our achievements and struggles.

2.     It is a day to honour our founding fathers who toiled to establish our republic and every Nigerian who has worked tirelessly to sustain it.

3.     We are celebrating this year’s Democracy Day despite the COVID-19 pandemic which afflicts our nation and the whole world.

4.     It is indeed a very difficult time for everyone especially those who have lost loved ones to the virus and those whose sources of livelihood have been severely constrained by the stringent measures we introduced at every level of government to contain the virus and save lives.

5.     The dedication of our health and other essential services staff towards containing this virus is a testament of our courage and resilience as a people and as a great nation, and I use this opportunity to say thank you to all of you for your service to the nation.

6.     Sustaining our democracy thus far has been a collective struggle, and I congratulate all Nigerians and particularly leaders of our democratic institutions on their resilience and determination to ensure that Nigeria remains a shining example of democracy.

7.     In my 2019 Democracy Day address, I promised to frontally address the nation’s daunting challenges, especially insecurity, economy and corruption. I therefore find it necessary to give an account of my stewardship on this day.

8.     We have recorded notable achievements in the course of implementing our nine priority objectives and are establishing a solid foundation for future success.

9.     On the economic front, our objectives have remained to stabilize the macroeconomy, achieve agricultural and food security, ensure energy sufficiency in power and petroleum products, develop infrastructure, fight corruption and improve governance.

10.            We have witnessed eleven quarters of consecutive GDP growth since exiting recession. The GDP grew from 1.91% in 2018 to 2.27% in 2019 but declined to 1.87% in the first quarter of 2020 as a result of the decline in global economic activities due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

11.            Every single economy in the world has suffered a decline. Ours has been relatively moderate.

12.            In order to stabilize the economy, the Monetary Authority took steps to build the external reserves which resulted in improved liquidity in the foreign exchange market. The external reserves grew from $33.42 billion on April 29^th 2020 to about $36.00 billion in May, 2020 which is enough to finance seven months of import commitments.

13.            Agriculture remains the key to our economic diversification strategy. The Presidential Fertilizer Initiative programme continues to deliver significant quantities of affordable and high-quality fertilizers to our farmers. This initiative has also revived 31 blending plants and created a significant number of direct and indirect jobs across the value chain.

14.            Government is also revamping the cotton, textile and garment sector via a CBN Textile Revival Intervention Fund that would considerably reduce foreign exchange spent on cotton and other textile imports.

15.            Through the food security initiative, we are promoting “Grow What We Eat” and “Eat What We Grow”. I am also delighted that more and more Nigerians are taking advantage of the opportunities in the agriculture and agri-business sector. I assure you that government will continue to support the Agriculture sector through the CBN Anchor Borrowers Programme and similar schemes.

16.            To protect our farming investments, we have deployed 5,000 Agro-Rangers and employed 30,289 in our para-military agencies.

17.            We are also integrating rural communities to the formal economy by extending access to credit and inputs to rural farmers and building feeder roads.

18.            Our efforts on growing non-oil exports have started to yield some results. For instance, in the past year, our revenue from Cocoa and Sesame Seed increased by $79.4 million and $153 million.

19.            Africa presents a huge opportunity for our export base diversification and we are developing our strategy to grow intra-Africa trade through the Africa Continental Free Trade Area Agreement.

20.            Nigeria has risen by 25 places on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business ranking from 146^th to 131^st and is now rated as one of the top ten reforming countries.

21.            This development is due to the Visa on Arrival policy, consistent promotion of initiatives that expand facilities available to Micro Small and Medium Scale Enterprises, robust electronic registration and payment system, seamless processing of business registration and reduction of cost of registering business by 50%. We are confident that on-going efforts would result in further improvement of this rating.

22.            We remain committed to expanding our mining sector. To this end, I have directed the resuscitation of the Ajaokuta Steel Plant based on Government-to-Government financing and a Public-Private Sector financing.

23.            With foreign and domestic investments and the participation of Small Scale Miners, we are harnessing the supply value chain in gold production.

24.            We would also be launching a fully digitized mineral rights management platform for quick processing of mineral rights application, digitization of records and plugging revenue leakages.

25.            The Power Sector remains very critical to meeting our industrial development aspirations and we are tackling the challenges that still exist in the delivery of power through different strategies.

26.            We are executing some critical projects through the Transmission Rehabilitation and Expansion Programme including the:

a.     Alaoji to Onitsha, Delta Power Station to Benin and Kaduna to Kano;

b.     330kv DC 62km line between Birnin Kebbi and Kamba;

c.     Lagos/Ogun Transmission Infrastructure Project;

d.     Abuja Transmission Ring Scheme; and

e.     Northern Corridor Transmission Project.

27.            Our agreement with Siemens will transmit and distribute a total of 11,000 Megawatts by 2023, to serve our electricity needs.

28.            On transportation, another critical sector to improving our economic competitiveness, we are growing the stock and quality of our road, rail, air and water transport infrastructure.

29.            Through the SUKUK-Funded Road Projects, a total of 412km of the targeted 643km road projects have been completed, representing 64%.

30.            The Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund projects are also progressing very well. On the 2^nd Niger Bridge, piling work has been completed and the approach roads are being constructed. 48% of work on this bridge has been achieved. We have constructed 102km of the 376km Abuja – Kaduna – Kano Road, representing 38%, and the 42.9km Obajana – Kabba Road is 87.03% complete.

31.            Furthermore, the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency has completed routine maintenance on over 4,000km of federal roads out of the 5,000km targeted.

32.            We are extending and upgrading our railway network too. We are introducing more locomotives, coaches and wagons for the Abuja-Kaduna Rail Line. The Central Ajaokuta – Itakpe – Warri Line has been completed and is being extended from Itakpe to Abuja on one end and from Warri Town to Warri Port on the other.

33.            The Lagos-Ibadan Rail Line is 90% completed and would be extended to the Lagos Port which would help address the long-standing grid-lock at the Apapa port.

34.            The Kano – Maradi Single Track Standard Gauge Railway, Coastal Railway Project and Port Harcourt – Maiduguri Standard Gauge Railway, with its associated branch lines running through the South Eastern and Gombe States, industrial park and Bonny Deep Sea Port are all ready for concessioning.

35.            Government continues to make investments in the Aviation sector to position it as a travel and trade hub in West Africa and the wider African continent.

36.            Airport Terminals in Abuja, Lagos, Kano and Port Harcourt are being expanded, while the rehabilitation of the Enugu Airport is almost completed. All our airports are being raised to international standards with the provision of necessary equipment, especially navigational aids, to guarantee world class safety standards.

37.            For the first time in over ten years, Nigeria is conducting bidding process for 57 Marginal Oil Fields to increase revenue and increase the participation of Nigerian companies in oil and exploration and production business.

38.            We continue to grow local content in other areas of the oil and gas sector with the disbursement of funds from the $200 million Nigerian Content Intervention Fund to indigenous manufacturers and service providers.

39.            With sustained engagement of youths, opinion leaders and other stakeholders, we have restored peace in the Niger Delta Region and maintained our oil production levels.

40.            The Head office of the Niger Delta Development Commission will be commissioned shortly. The Funding of sections I–IV of the East-West Road shall be pursued with a view to completing the project by the end of 2021.

41.            Furthermore, I am determined to ensure that development meant for the people of the Niger Delta get to them so I have authorised a Forensic Audit of the Niger Delta Development Commission.

42.            Digital Economy continues to play an important role in our development agenda as we move into the age of Artificial Intelligence.

43.            Since the creation of the Ministry of Communication and Digital Economy, the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy has been launched. Steps have been taken to achieve a reduction of connectivity cluster gaps from 207 to 114 as well as increase the level of 4G coverage by 30%.

44.            Nigeria remains committed to expanding access to quality education to enhance the productivity of its citizens and would continue to pursue the enforcement of free and compulsory basic education for the first 9 years of schooling.

45.            In pursuit of this, we have launched the Better Education Service Delivery for All in 17 states, established additional 6 Federal Science and Technical Colleges and currently executing a pro-active Teacher Training Plan with all states of the Federation.

46.            In our revision of the operations of specialized education funds and to implement reforms that would optimize their benefits to the sector, we have adopted a Public-Private Sector Partnership for provision of infrastructure and also collaborate with the private sector to create jobs.

47.            Our pursuit of affordable housing for the low and middle-income earners has received a boost with the delivery of 1,200 housing units, provision of 520 service plots with infrastructure through a Public Private Sector partnership and the issuance of 868 mortgages totaling N7.7 Billion. Similarly, Home Renovation Loans totaling N16.2 Billion have been granted to 19,210 people.

48.            To enable sustainable access to safe and sufficient water to meet the social, cultural, environmental and economic development needs of all Nigerians, we continue to expand our water supply, irrigation and dam facilities.

49.            The Completion of Amauzari, Amla Otukpo and other 42 Earth Dams with combined job creation of about 43,354 direct jobs and 71,172 indirect jobs, would provide more support for irrigation agriculture and water supply.

50.            To further institutionalize our effort in this regard, I signed the Executive Order 009 on Ending Open Defecation in Nigeria.

51.            In order to improve our forest cover and in fulfilment of my commitment at the 74^th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in 2019, we have commenced the planting of 25 million trees. This initiative will also contribute to our effort to mitigate the effect of climate change.

52.            In the area of security, we remain unshaken in our resolve to protect our national infrastructure including on-shore and off-shore oil installations, secure our territorial waters and end piracy in the Gulf of Guinea.

53.            Ending insurgency, banditry and other forms of criminality across the nation is being accorded appropriate priorities and the men and women of the Armed Forces of Nigeria have considerably downgraded such threats across all geo-political zones.

54.            All the Local Governments that were taken over by the Boko Haram insurgents in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa have long been recovered and are now occupied by indigenes of these areas who were hitherto forced to seek a living in areas far from their ancestral homes.

55.            The total collapse of the economies of these areas, which constituted a threat to our food security, has also been reversed with the gradual recovery of farming and other economic activities.

56.            I regret recent sporadic incidents with tragic loss of lives in Katsina and Borno States as a result of criminals taking advantage of COVID-19 restrictions. Security Agencies will pursue the perpetrators and bring them to swift justice.

57.            I must implore state and local governments to revamp their intelligence assets so that the Security Agencies can nip in the bud any planned attacks in remote rural areas. I send my heartfelt condolences to all the relatives and communities affected.

58.            As part of the strengthening of our internal security architecture, the Ministry of Police Affairs was created.

59.            Amongst others, Government has expanded the National Command and Control Centre to nineteen states of the federation, resuscitated the National Public Security Communication System and commenced the implementation of the Community Policing Strategy.

60.            Government has similarly established a Nigerian Police Trust Fund as a public-private sector vehicle for alternative sources of funding security activities.

61.            To reduce security challenges through our external borders especially smuggling of oil products out of the country, inflow of small arms and drugs into the country and equally protect our local manufacturers, we introduced operation “Ex-Swift Response” closing our borders from August 20th 2019, and have considerably succeeded in meeting its objectives as well as improving our national revenue.

62.            Our Government has continued to work to reduce social and economic inequality through targeted social investment programmes, education, technology and improved information.

63.            Our Social Investment Programme has continued to be a model to other nations and has engaged 549,500 N-Power beneficiaries, 408,682 beneficiaries of the Conditional Cash Transfer Programme and 2,238,334 beneficiaries of the Growth Enhancement and Empowerment Programme. This is being done in collaboration with the States.

64.            Similarly, “Marketmoni” and “Tradermoni” Programmes have provided affordable loans to small and micro scale enterprises to grow their businesses. Under the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme, over 9,963,729 children are being fed to keep them in school and improve their nutritional status.

65.            Fellow Nigerians, the year 2020 has been like none other. In January 2020, the COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization. The number of global infections has risen from less than 8,000 shared between China and eighteen other countries to over 7million spread over 216 countries and on all continents.

66.            Nigeria recorded its first case of COVID-19 on February 27th 2020 and within the first 100 days, I have had cause to address the nation on three occasions within one month, which underscores the gravity of this pandemic.

67.            There is no doubt that this pandemic has affected the global economy and all known socio-economic systems. It has also brought grief and pain to families that have lost their loved ones. Like many Nigerians, I feel the grief and pain not only as your President but also as someone who has lost a close member of my staff and some relatives and friends.

68.            In order to have a robust National response, I approved a Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 to provide guidance and leadership in tackling the pandemic nationwide.

69.            State Governments also constituted their own COVID-19 Task Forces.  Complementing this was the establishment of a National Emergency Operations Centre responsible for providing technical and professional guidance in the National Response.

70.            The overall objective of the PTF COVID-19 is to ensure that the pandemic does not overwhelm our health systems, while ensuring that we maintain an effective Case Management System to help in containing the spread of the virus.

71.            The impact of the pandemic has disrupted our economic system and to ensure its functioning while still addressing the spread, the Federal Government put in place a number of various non-pharmaceutical measures to slow down the spread of the virus, in addition to a progressive re-opening of the economy.

72.            As part of the strategy to create jobs in reducing the effect of COVID-19 on our youths, I directed the employment of 774, 000 Nigerians. These youths will be engaged in Special Public Works Programme aimed at cushioning the effects of economic downturn. Each of the 774 local government areas in the country will be allotted 1,000 slots. I am pleased to report that this programme has commenced.

73.            I receive regular briefing from the PTF on COVID-19.  I note that the National Response relies on Science, Data and Experience in taking decisions. This informed my approval for the ease of lock down phase to ensure a balance between lives and livelihoods.

74.            I am confident that the steps being taken by the PTF would result in flattening the COVID-19 curve. I, therefore, implore all Nigerians to abide by the approved guidelines and protocols. There is hope for us all if we take individual and collective responsibility.

75.            Government is determined to turn this COVID-19 challenge into a motivation to action by building a nation-wide public health care system that will help us overcome the COVID-19 pandemic and prepare for any future outbreak.

76.            Already, we have begun to look inward and I charge our inventors, researchers and scientists to come up with solutions to cure COVID-19.

77.            Government has continued to implement accountability and transparent policies through the Open Government Partnership and the transparency portal on financial transactions. Similarly, we have strengthened auditing and accountability mechanisms so as to ensure that rules and regulations are followed strictly.

78.            Anti-Corruption Agencies have secured more than 1,400 convictions and also recovered funds in excess of N800 billion. These monies are being ploughed into development and infrastructure projects.

79.            The Public Service of Nigeria remains the bedrock for the formulation and implementation of policies, programmes and projects in the country. This accounts for why it continues to evolve especially as new socio-economic challenges emerge for Government to address.

80.            I will continue to give all the necessary support for the on-going reforms designed to return discipline, integrity and patriotism as the hallmark of the public service.

81.            In the face of dwindling resources and rising cost of governance, I have authorized that the White Paper on the Rationalisation of Government Parastatals and Agencies be reviewed for implementation.

82.            Our youth population remains a source of strength in achieving development objectives. In this regard, we would continue to concentrate in developing their skills, providing them with opportunities to express their entrepreneurial, research and industrial capacities as well as ample opportunity to take leadership positions in the service of the nation.

83.            The commitment of this Administration to the well-being of people living with disabilities remains unwavering. Government recognises their contributions to development. I have directed that all relevant Government agencies pay special attention to the peculiarities of persons with disabilities in the formulation and implementation of their policies and programmes, and where suitable their employment.

84.            Nigerian women remain a particular treasure to this nation and for this reason this Administration has continued to give them a place of pride in the affairs of our country.

85.            I salute your courage, enterprise and resilience as well as your contributions to national development. I wish to assure all our women of this administration’s determination to fight Gender Based Violence through the instrumentality of the law and awareness creation. I am particularly upset at recent incidents of rape especially of very young girls. The Police are pursuing these cases with a view to bringing perpetrators of these heinous crimes to swift justice.

86.             Government continues to recognize and harness the power of the media for positive development. The reforms of the broadcast and advertising industries including digital switch over and continuous engagement through town hall meetings remain central to accurate and credible information dissemination.

87.            Our culture provides the basis for our existence as a people and a nation. In preserving iconic aspects of our national culture, this government has been pursuing the recovery of artefacts removed from Nigeria, promoting heritage sites and festivals and working towards designating some of our heritage sites as UNESCO World Heritage Centres.

88.            This administration is focused on ensuring that Nigeria would always be governed by the Rule of Law and I would do my utmost to uphold the constitution and protect the lives and property of all Nigerians.

89.            Government has initiated a number of policies and programmes designed to promote the legal rights of Nigerians, facilitate the institutionalization of a responsive legal system, provide support to all constituted bodies in implementing their mandates and improve our custodial system of justice.

90.            The National Assembly has been an important partner in our quest to sustain our democracy and achieve our development objectives.

91.            I therefore greatly thank the leadership and members of the Senate and the House of Representatives for their invaluable support at all times.

92.            I will also like to convey our deep appreciation to members of the Press for your doggedness in the struggle for attainment of democracy since the beginning of our nationhood.

93.             I must admit that the relationship between the media and successive governments has not always been perfect. But there is no denying the fact that you have been an effective watchdog for the society especially in holding public officers to account. It is sad that in the course of securing our democracy, some of your colleagues have had to pay a heavy price.

94.            We will continue to guarantee freedom of the Press as we place high premium on responsible journalism that is devoid of hate speech, fake news and other unethical professional conduct.

95.            Fellow Nigerians, as we celebrate this year’s Democracy Day, let us remember that, notwithstanding our aspirations, humanity and indeed democracy is under the threat of COVID-19. Nigeria has survived many crises before and came out stronger. I am confident that by God’s grace we shall overcome this one and emerge stronger and more purposeful.

96.            Thank you for listening. God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.