Nigeria is not a failed state, President Goodluck Jonathan said Thursday, adding that his administration would work assiduously to make the country a pride for all.

Speaking while inaugurating seven of the eight ministers confirmed by the Senate in the last one week at the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja, Jonathan said: “Our nation has been described by certain persons as a failed state. But we are definitely not a failed state. We are a country of talented people, who have the capacity to address whatever challenges our country may be facing. Other nations have passed through their own trying moments, in no way is our experience peculiar.”

He charged the new ministers to see their appointments as a call to service, which he said, required that they must serve Nigerians with diligence.

He assured them that he would guide them through by providing an enabling environment to enable them to perform efficiently.

Jonathan said he was confident that with the team he inaugurated, which formed the last batch of nine ministers, his administration was set to hit the ground running. They took their oaths of office without Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Jigawa State nominee.

He told the ministers that: “Our task is to address the issues which preoccupy Nigerians. We must act quickly while at the same time, working on sustainable responses to long-term challenges. This is the debt we owe the electorate who turned out in large numbers in the April 2011 elections to make a statement with their votes. I will therefore expect the best form of conduct in the discharge of your responsibilities.”

According to him, “A responsive, responsible and accountable government is central to a genuine democracy. To continue in your positions, you must always be responsive, responsible and accountable. In particular, I expect that ministers and ministers of state will work together as a team, and in so doing, eschew the kind of rivalry and one-upmanship that has been a problem in the past. I expect maximum cooperation among all members of the Executive Council of the Federation. We cannot achieve much if we work at cross-purposes”.

Explaining the long wait for his ministers to emerge, the president said his search for the team led him within and outside the country where selection was based on an “assessment of expertise, integrity, experience, qualifications, and after due consultations with a broad category of stakeholders”, and the screening of the nominees by the Senate as required by law.

Preparing the minds of members of his team on the direction of the administration, he said: “I believe with a transformational leadership that is willing and committed, we can reposition our country for economic growth and development, and win the support of all and sundry, including those who are in doubt or denial.

“There will be difficult decisions and tough moments ahead but we must, through our efforts, show that we are prepared to work in the best way to focus on the people’s aspirations. It only takes committed people to do things differently. I believe you are among the group of Nigerians that can do things differently and help to move our country forward.

“One critical issue that will also engage our attention is the issue of corruption. There is no doubt that our rating in the global corruption index is embarrassing. Corruption is therefore the monster that we need to confront and defeat in order to raise the country’s integrity profile. The war against corruption in this dispensation will start at the centre.

“The anti-corruption agencies have been directed to beam their searchlights on the Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the Federal Government, and also focus on the states and local government areas, in order to send out a clear signal that no form of abuse will be tolerated. We will carry out a comprehensive audit of all Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the Federal Government beginning from June 2007. You must observe due process in all that you do. I expect you to be above board.”

He admonished the ministers to be change agents and see their appointments as opportunity to address the myriad of problems besetting the power sector, revolutionise the agricultural sector for food security, roads, create employment and revive productivity, sanitise the oil and gas sector, sanitise the educational sector by restoring quality to public school system among others for the difference in the expectations of the people to be felt.

Jonathan told the audience that in the effort to select his cabinet, some nominees and members of their family were threatened with assassinations, while others were visited with campaign of calumny and character assassination.

He said all these were uncalled for as all hands had to be on deck to deliver the goods while the ministers should give proper account of stewardship to the people through hard work. His cabinet, he said, was not that of any party but for Nigerians.

“You have been called upon to serve your fatherland at a most trying and challenging period in our nation’s history. On October 1st last year, we celebrated our golden jubilee as an independent nation. On January 1, 2014, we will celebrate our centenary as a nation. This surely is a transitional phase that requires transformational leadership at all levels. I believe that the best way forward is to have a strong government of determined and capable men and women, who believe passionately in Nigeria and who want to make a difference.

“In the various speeches that I gave from the primaries through the campaigns to the inauguration on 29th May, I promised Nigerians that I will run a transparent government and ensure a significant improvement in our economy. You are to join me and the vice-president to achieve this. Our plan is to restructure the economic management team in order to make it more functional; the new structure will be coordinated by the Minister of Finance, with a charge to ensure improved performance of key economic sectors and greater efficiency,” he said.

Concluding on a jocular note with a quote from late Dr. Tai Solarin where he said the task was not going to be easy, he said: “May your road be rough. I am not cursing you; I am wishing you what I wish myself every year. I therefore repeat, may you have a hard time this year, may there be plenty of troubles for you this year! If you are not so sure what you should say back, why not just say, same to you? I ask no more!”

Continuing, Jonathan said: “Obviously the road ahead of us may be rough, but with sincere and purposeful leadership, we will surely succeed in transforming this country.”

Ministers sworn in Thursday were Dr. Mohammed Ali-Pate (Borno), Chief Edem Duke (Cross River), Mrs. Omobola Johnson (Ondo), Mrs. Hadiza Ibrahim Mailafia (Kaduna), Dr. Nurudeen Mohammad (Jigawa), Mrs. Sarah Ochekpe (Plateau), Ms. Ama Pepple (Rivers), Ezebunwo Nyesom Wike (Rivers), and Dr. Akinwunmi Adeshina Ayodeji (Ogun).

Speaking on behalf of the new ministers after the group photograph, Wike said they had resolved to key into the vision of the president and deliver key sectors, especially power, without which the vision would be hard to achieve.

He said education, agriculture and building of infrastructure were other priority areas and pledged to work together to make a difference in the administration of the country.

http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/jonathan-nigeria-is-not-a-failed-state/95050/

Thoughts? I don't think he is entirely wrong. . . it isn't a failed state like Somalia or something. But neither is it a successful state, right now.

Jonathan is a zoologist. He has no business leading a nation.

Of all the degrees to have on campus -- where was he when his mates were studying zoology and all that ? Go sit down for zoo, where you belong to with the animals.

It depends on your definition of a failed state. To many, it is already seen as a failed state, when it cannot protect its citizens. I am starting to think he is in denial.

naa we just have a failed president

A failed president makes a failed state

Is Nigeria a failed state? Chxta seems to think so,

obowunmi:

Jonathan is a zoologist. He has no business leading a nation.

Of all the degrees to have on campus -- where was he when his mates were studying zoology and all that ? Go sit down for zoo, where you belong to with the animals.

@ fake optimism

But she's hanging precariously at the precipice.

Nigeria is not an entirely failed state compared to others(names withheld), i think its rather slow in its policy implementation. . .all we can do is pray and hope for berra days ahesd

Let's not be deceived. Nigeria is a failed state. We don't need to be a war zone in other for us to realize this.

A Malfunctioning State that fails in most spheres within its realm.

Gbenge 77:

But she's hanging precariously at the precipice.

Na lie . . . una don dey talk that one since 19 gogorongo . . . so many years later, you still singing the same song!!! Don't you get tired of? lol

In what way is it not a failed state? How many of our many problems have they not failed to take care of?


Corruption - Fail

Infrastructure - Fail

Education - Fail

Health care - Fail

Security - Fail

Transportation - Fail

Governance - Fail

Leadership - Fail

A failed people voted for a failed president who is now leading a failed state/people.


Nigeria is yet to fail, but we the people, with our constant bickering and lack of patriotism have failed.


When this country eventually fail, let it be said that it wont be because of bad leadership, it would fail because of the people of Nigeria.


The moment we begin to take personal responsibility for ourselves, the soonest the country would begin to look up.

SO yes, the president is right, Nigeria is not yet a failed state, but the people have already failed.

Most Nigerians often shamefully tickles themselves that they are alright by making a comparism with Somalia.  But when you considers the number of dead each day in Nigeria from violent crime, road accident, hunger, child mortality and diseases, especially curable diseases, it seems a country in middle of an ongoing war, which I believe Somalia doesn't.

I have always maintained that there are two Nigeria, one in Abuja comprising of Jonathan and about ten thousand others and the other Nigeria comprising  of the remainder of the people.
The ambition of the the rest is to find oneself among the ten thousand and among the ten thousand, their scheme of things in life is never the lose one's position, no matter what it takes to maintain that statu quo.
Nigeria has every signal, shape and character of a failed state.

Eziachi:

Most Nigerians often shamefully tickles themselves that they are alright by making a comparism with Somalia.  But when you considers the number of dead each day in Nigeria from violent crime, road accident, hunger, child mortality and diseases, especially curable diseases, it seems a country in middle of an ongoing war, which I believe Somalia doesn't.

You dont always have to open your mouth everytime. If you have nothing to say, best to keep quiet and be thought a fool than to post and remove all doubts.


So your definition of a failed state = number of dead people per year in a country?

Just the number not the rate?

In NYC alone in 2010, more people died from gun shots than the number of US soldiers killed in Afghanistan. Does that make the US a failed state, especially when you add total deaths from other parts of the country.  And yes, more people die from curable deaths in the US than Nigeria. If you have malaria, and hope to survive,  trust me, you want to be in Nigeria, not the US.

I have always maintained that there are two Nigeria, one in Abuja comprising of Jonathan and about ten thousand others and the other Nigeria comprising  of the remainder of the people.

The same analogy applies to every country. Washing DC and the rest of the country, Melbourne and the rest of Australia, Cape Town and the rest of SA etc.

This point of yours is very senseless.

An interesting article you might all want to read

Beyond a claim to greatness firmly tied to its population size and the vastness of its oil fields, Nigeria’s socio-political developmental progress remains unflattering. This scenario is hardly helped by the latest annual rating of US-based non-profit organisation, Fund for Peace (FFP) in collaboration with Foreign Policy magazine which
ranked the country 14th among 177 countries on the failed states index. LOUIS ACHI examines the substance of this rating

Mulling the human crisis that defined his era, former French president, Giscard D’Estaing once proclaimed that “history is tragic”. Born during the First World War, he fought in the second global conflagration. Perhaps, from insight shaped by being both a participant and witness to the triumph of the human spirit over unimaginable odds, he counseled statesmen and world leaders that, “There can be no response to history without effort.”

This pungent observation by a soldier-statesman captures the development dilemma of Nigeria as she attempts to evolve into a nation-state built on justice and equity. Arguably, as a result of the inability or unwillingness of Nigeria’s political leadership to make the necessary effort to respond to the challenges encapsulated in the peculiar history of its nationhood, socio-political and economic regression have become the defining features of Africa’s most populous state and the world’s fifth largest federation. This scenario has spawned considerable loss of faith among her citizens, as well as gave birth to the subsisting debate: Is Nigeria a failed or failing state?

In the recent report compiled and released by the U.S.-based non-profit organisation, Fund for Peace in collaboration with the Foreign Policy magazine, Nigeria was ranked 14th among 177 countries evaluated by the organisation, trailing states like Somalia, Sudan, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Zimbabwe, Central African Republic, Afghanistan, Iraq, Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea, Pakistan, and Yemen.

It is worth recalling that Nigeria has occupied an unenviable position in the ranking of this organisation since 2005. The country was ranked 54th in that year; 22nd in 2006; 17th in 2007; 18th in 2008 and 15th in 2009.

Today, confronted with a perplexing mosaic of lawlessness, violence, disease, pernicious corruption, weak institutions and massive divestment from Nigeria by notable entrepreneurial concerns, many Nigerians have enlisted dark metaphors to attempt to describe what seem to be the terminal symptoms of their statehood.

In the North, amidst seething poverty, injustice, puzzling elite conspiracy and ignorance, the loss of faith in the state is expressed in often virulent ethno-religious violence. The most recent platform of expressing this revolt is the bloody depredations of the ‘Boko Haram’.

In the South, depraved criminality mirrored in kidnappings, armed robbery and human trafficking, and militancy in the Niger Delta region represent outer expressions of inner contradictions of the state. Today, the nation’s education system is in a quandary as the federal government battles distraught lecturers, teachers and workers in the system.

Clearly visible is an increasingly degraded economic and socio-political environment. In the West African and sub-Saharan region, there is an increasing, strategic shift of attention to Accra, as Abuja takes a back seat.

It could be recalled that visiting US Secretary of State, Senator Hillary Clinton captured something of this dilemma when she noted that “Lack of transparency and accountability has eroded the legitimacy of the government and contributed to the rise of groups that embrace violence and reject the authority of the state, The most immediate source of the disconnect between Nigeria’s wealth and its poverty, (is) a failure of governance at the federal, state and local levels.”

Clearly evident are all the signs of a state heading for failure - where a constitutional authority increasingly shows an inability to provide basic services like guaranteeing security to life and property, maintenance of economic and social services, infrastructure and food security and the likes are not manifest.

Twelve years after the ruling Peoples Democratic Party ‘seized’ political power, considerable hope has been betrayed. Instead of strengthening democracy and promoting good governance, the party has been bedeviled by extreme cluelessness, indiscipline and a compelling failure to exercise power to the benefit of Nigerians. Whereas it was expected to mirror the ideals of the progressives who were its founding mentors, the party rather curiously chose a pathway totally opposite to the deepening of democracy.

Freshly elected, President Goodluck Jonathan promises a transformational administration and sings an alluring song of change. But Nigerians, short-changed for too long, are cautious and carefully watching. Yesterday, a month after his presidential inauguration, Jonathan swore in some ministers that will be part of his new cabinet to drive his agenda. Will the Jonathan presidency provide fundamental change that Nigerians crave? Big question.

As it were, the weight of hope vested on the ruling party previously and currently by Nigerians to transform their lot has been seared by a trajectory bordering on infamy. The emerging consensus is that a puzzling failure of the imagination and the political will to act with clarity has rail-roaded Nigeria to the edge of the precipice. Significantly, what remains of the opposition parties have cloned these regressive traits in their disparate domains. Spokesman of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP), Osita Okechukwu labels this development as “elite factionalisation.”

According to two leading American political institutions, the influential Foreign Policy magazine and the Fund for Peace, a failing has several attributes. One of the most common is the “loss of physical control of its territory or a monopoly on the legitimate use of force”.

Other attributes of state failure, according to the institutions, include the erosion of legitimate authority to make collective decisions, an inability to provide reasonable public services, and the inability to interact with other states as a full member of the international community.

The 12 indicators cover a wide range of elements of the risk of state failure, such as extensive corruption and criminal behaviour, inability to collect taxes or otherwise draw on citizen support, large-scale involuntary dislocation of the population, sharp economic decline, group-based inequality, institutionalised persecution or discrimination, severe demographic pressures, brain drain, and environmental decay.

They said states could fail at varying rates through explosion, implosion, erosion, or invasion over different time periods.

On its part, the Crisis States Research Centre defines a “failed state” as a condition of “state collapse” - i.e, a state that can no longer perform its basic security and development functions and that has no effective control over its territory and borders.

A failed state is one that can no longer reproduce the conditions for its own existence. But contradictions enter the fray in the policy community when making distinctions concerning failed states.

For instance, there is a tendency to label a “poorly performing” state as “failed” - a tendency the Crisis States Research Centre rejects. The opposite of a “failed state” is an “enduring state” and the absolute dividing line between these two conditions is often blurred. Even in a failed state, some elements of the state, such as local state organisations, might continue to exist.

In a telling summary, American scientist, linguist and political expert, Noam Chomsky articulated some characteristics of a failed state: first, the disability or unwillingness of the state to protect its citizens from violence and death. Second, it is inclination of authorities to see them above the law - both national and international. Third, such a state suffers a serious deficit of democracy which “deprives formal democratic institutes of their real content”.

According to the on-line wikipedia, political indicators of a failed state include criminalisation and/or delegitimisation of the state, as expressed in endemic corruption or profiteering by the ruling elite and resistance to transparency, accountability and political representation, and widespread loss of popular confidence in state institutions and processes.

Then there is the progressive deterioration of public services mirrored in the disappearance of basic state functions that serve the people, including failure to protect citizens from terrorism and violence, and to provide essential services like health, education, sanitation, public transportation. Others include widespread violation of human rights, rise of a factionalised elite and using the security agencies with impunity, like praetorian guards.

Will the nation’s political leadership wake to the glaring danger and pull back from the edge of the precipice to save Nigeria from incipient disintegration? Which failure niche does Nigeria occupy? Has she failed? Is she failing? Is she navigating the straits of “explosion, implosion, erosion or invasion”?

iragbijile:


You dont always have to open your mouth everytime. If you have nothing to say, best to keep quiet and be thought a fool than to post and remove all doubts.


So your definition of a failed state = number of dead people per year in a country?

Just the number not the rate?

In NYC alone in 2010, more people died from gun shots that the number of US soldiers killed in Afghanistan. Does that make the US a failed state, especially when you add total deaths from other parts of the country.  And yes, more people die from curable deaths in the US than Nigeria. If you have malaria, and hope to survive,  trust me, you want to be in Nigeria, not the US.





The same analogy applies to every country. Washing DC and the rest of the country, Melbourne and the rest of Australia, Cape Town and the rest of SA etc.

This point of yours is very senseless.

Young man i've been compelled to reply to your indignant post.I'd strongly urge you to show some respect irrespective of wherever you are I'm sure your parents must have taught  you a thing or two

cold:

Young man i've been compelled to reply to your indignant post.I'd strongly urge you to show some respect irrespective of wherever you are I'm sure your parents must have taught  you a thing or two

ha i don't think u hve the right to call him a "young man" as you do not know his age. this is a faceless forum

thank you

It's a figurative expression ok.Get over it!

Is it true this guy has a PhD. What's the benchmark/canon/rule/yardstick for GEJ's assertion that Nigeria isn't a failed State?

Nigeria is not by any definition a Failed State.

THE PEOPLE OF NIGERIA ARE A COMPLETE FAILURE PARTICULARLY THE MEN.

All we do is breed too many irresponsible MEN who with their pitiful lack of self-control find it so difficult to get together and develop solutions for their own country. We keep celebrating the birth of nonentities.


I will be doing a long write up on Nairaland on why our MEN are a failure and absolutely useless.

dayokanu:

A failed president makes a failed state

A failed people make a fail nation.how can u put the failure of a nation as the fault of one person?

dayokanu:

A failed president makes a failed state

A failed people make a fail nation.how can u put the failure of a nation as the fault of one person?

dayokanu:

A failed president makes a failed state

A failed people make a fail nation.how can u put the failure of a nation as the fault of one person?

@post.
Ok; its a successful zoo dustbin then

UNTIL WE DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE COUNTRY'S corruption aided constitution. WE, NIGERIANS, ARE ALL FAILURE.
WE come here to shout and critize. what step has anyone taken to curb this. even if its just to carry placards.

Imagine a clueless former governor of Kano state requesting 3 billion naira for ordinary house which max. of 3 million should be able to finish.
HOW MUSH DOES KANO STATE GOVERNMENT MAKE IN A YEAR? That just one person want to consume in a day. upon all the houses and properties he may have acquired here and there.He stil has the audacity to requet for bogus ransome.

Nigeria is in deep mess. WE ARE ALL FOOLS

We need [b]REVOLUTION [/b]in our God blessed country. We have no reason to fail whatsoever.

fake and failed President leading failed/Banana Republic

I believe failure has degress,


Nigeria is not Afghanistan or Somalia fail but it is very very very very close,

The truth is, it will never work in Nigeria,  Too many combination in one entity!

The complexity of Nigeria can only be matched by a god leader and so far we haven't had any nil none nada zero!!!

People defending Nigeria need to go back home. Don't let the "9ja swag fool ya" Nigeria isn't working,

Unless we are willing to die to make it work, it won't work,  So if we put all our mught into it, it will work,

But having Leaders elected based on sentiments is an example of a failed state sir especially when those sentiments are ethno-religious!! We are doomed people!!

The Nigerian people are not the same now everyone is capitalist minded and dignity is getting smoked up in the melting pot!!!!



Based on what we were, what we are and what we could have been/should be, I say Nigeria is a failed state!!!!!!!!!!!!!    Just because the system is working for you doesn't mean it's working for 150million others okay?? okay thanks!!

SOLUTION, BREAK-UP!!! We just don't like each other, that too has failed!!