thegoodjoehunt:

From the Subsidy removal from AGO and PMS, with the rise in crude oil prices, with the privatization scheme going on, the government is suppose to have a lot to develop this nation with ease.

thegoodjoehunt:

Prime minister Okonjo said her government will only handle transmission, they are selling everything. What will happen to the money received. What will happen to the funds meant for running these projects.

It just reminds me of OBJ. After his privatization scheme/scam and Subsidy removal of AGO. The national reserves still kept on going down.

thegoodjoehunt:

From the Subsidy removal from AGO and PMS, with the rise in crude oil prices, with the privatization scheme going on, the government is suppose to have a lot to develop this nation with ease.

CFCfan:
Yeah, it could happen
Anyway, like I said earlier, it seems NOI wasn't flustered by Amanpour's questioning.

Feed me more:

I don't think she was either.

Imanuelle: she wants to 'right'' Jona's wrong?

SlyIg: Can i use my nokia to watch it plssssssssssssss?

playboy19:

Well, i thought i was the only dumb one around cos i found the interview so insulting. It's a big shame.

The President of Nigeria showed up on CNN, fukced himself in the a55
The Prime Minister followed suit. Isn't that hilarious?

thegoodjoehunt: You can imagine General Abacha running the PTF, building the national hospital, running the FSP program and yet still had nothing like Subsidy removal and Oil was at $12 a barrel. Yet he was able to handle roads, water, education etc.

Yet upon the rise in the amount of production of crude and the rise in crude oil prices. These guys are still privatizing and removing subsidies to run the nation. What a joke.

Johnnoah1st: PLEASE WHY IS IT THAT NAIRALAND IS FILLED WITH BORING NEWS THIS DAYS?

dlox147: guy do d maths urself how many % of our population represents our politicians n our police force?

CFCfan:

I'm yet to see the video on youtube tho.

thegoodjoehunt: You can imagine General Abacha running the PTF, building the national hospital, running the FSP program and yet still had nothing like Subsidy removal and Oil was at $12 a barrel. Yet he was able to handle roads, water, education etc.

Yet upon the rise in the amount of production of crude and the rise in crude oil prices. These guys are still privatizing and removing subsidies to run the nation. What a joke.

seanet01: You took the word from my mouth.
The same woman under whom the Nigerian Economy rotten to the stage where it is today.
Look at how she was dodging questions.
Gullible Nigerians.
Even CFCFAN fell for it.
Same story since 99.
Wasn't NOI part of the people who ran aground the economies of Portugal, Cyprus, Italy, Greece and a whole lot of other countries with the Bankers.
Under her watch we knew how much was looted under the guise of subsidy.
Some people just don't see beyond their nose.
What a world.
She is just an agent of the bankers.
Bankers are laughing
Workers are crying
Pensioners are crying
Social benefits are being cut even for disabled people
Yet the Bankers are still smiling.
Shine your eyes.
Ph.d does not translate to sincerity.

van bonattel:
Prime minister in Nigeria? And you are talking about another person? Hide your face in shame!

Raymond4kc: Transcript of the interview.

AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program. Africa's most populous nation, Nigeria, is full of promise. But fulfilling that promise is sometimes a struggle. Plagued by corruption and mismanagement, the resource-rich country has a poverty rate of over 50 percent. Maternal mortality is shockingly high. And more than half of Nigerians don't have access to electricity.

Nigeria's president, Goodluck Jonathan, can't even escape the power problem himself. Here he is on Easter Sunday, delivering a speech to his people only to have it disrupted by a blackout. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala says that she and her president want more for the country. She's Nigeria's finance minister and she's been lauded as just the kind of reformer that Nigeria needs. She was a runner-up to lead the World Bank and "Forbes" ranked her as one of the world's most powerful women.

alexchiny:

Nobody is forcing you to watch bro.

KokoBeware: ok... can someone please tell me what is wrong with the interview?? or where NOI went wrong..??

NOI spoke passionately about her country and answered all the questions perfectly while dodging the slippery once which is something a good administrator would do...
What exactly do you expect her to say about Alams pardon....

ojesoj:
Hw old are you. Teenagers commenting who know nothing about the economic situation in d country

Sunny_bobo:

You will save your self from embarrassment in the future if and only if you restrict yourself to commenting on only the things you know.

Abacha increased the price of fuel by 120% at a go from 5 naira per litre to 11 naira per litre by removing subsidy. The 6 naira increment went to PTF and was used for the PTF projects 98% of which BUHARI sited in the North.

SlyIg: Can i use my nokia to watch it plssssssssssssss?

dbride:

Airforce 1, check the topic, it dwells on her interview with Amanpour. Nothing more nothing else. We are judging the interview as she fared or handled it. Besides, I am not aware of this particular woman's crime. Please update me. I am clear about Dziani and some others. I really dont know how to judge people without a personal convinction that they are this or that.

Ability to excel in an interview is one thing, corruption is another. Some are corrupt and daft, some corrupt and intelligent, some honest and daft, some honest and intelligent. Different qualities, commed the good condemn the bad.

Raymond4kc: Transcript of the interview.

AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program. Africa's most populous nation, Nigeria, is full of promise. But fulfilling that promise is sometimes a struggle. Plagued by corruption and mismanagement, the resource-rich country has a poverty rate of over 50 percent. Maternal mortality is shockingly high. And more than half of Nigerians don't have access to electricity.

Nigeria's president, Goodluck Jonathan, can't even escape the power problem himself. Here he is on Easter Sunday, delivering a speech to his people only to have it disrupted by a blackout. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala says that she and her president want more for the country. She's Nigeria's finance minister and she's been lauded as just the kind of reformer that Nigeria needs. She was a runner-up to lead the World Bank and "Forbes" ranked her as one of the world's most powerful women.

omo this interview makes me cry, we really need intelligent people as our leaders .
i so much love wisdom
i so much love okonjo
i so much love NIGERIA.

But even she isn't immune from Nigeria's problems. Her own mother was kidnapped for a terrifying five days before being released.

I spoke to her and I asked her about her country's uphill struggle to transform Nigeria's resources into a better life for all the people. We talked when she was here in New York for the Women in the World Summit. And as you watch, we look forward to your tweets using #amanpour.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, welcome to the program.

NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA, NIGERIAN FINANCE MINISTER: Thank you for having me.

AMANPOUR: Great to have you.

OKONJO-IWEALA: Thank you.

AMANPOUR: Nigeria is a huge and important country. We have many, many viewers from Nigeria, always very active and very interested. So it's great to have you here.

OKONJO-IWEALA: Thank you.

AMANPOUR: You have said and others have said, that 2013 is going to be a real game-changing year, a turning point year for Nigeria, particularly in your area of finance and economics.

How?

OKONJO-IWEALA: Well, it's going to be a game-changer and a turning point, because this is the year we are going to produce results. And we're already producing results within the administration.

First, on the economic side, I just want to say that macroeconomic stability has been restored. Now, nobody should minimize that. Remember, there were two lost decades in Africa, in the '80s and '90s, where there was so much macro instability that people could not even focus on sectors that could create jobs.

Now things have gone right. We've got growth that is at 6.5 percent last year and we're projecting for 2013, also, around the same number compared to average 5 percent on the African continent.

Now, I just want to say that when you mention GDP growth, people immediately say we can -- in my country, they say we can't eat growth; because we have unemployment challenges, we need to create more jobs. We have a challenge of inclusion. We have problems of inequality.

All those are challenges we face.

AMANPOUR: You are obviously a passionate defender of your country. You are a person who calls for transparency and honesty and best practices.

There is a huge problem with corruption in your country. The president promised to address this stuff. And the latest is that an ally of his, a former governor who was convicted of stealing millions of dollars, has been pardoned, embezzling $55 million in public funds.

Now, the U.S. calls that a setback for the fight against corruption.

I mean how do you answer that?

OKONJO-IWEALA: How do I answer that question?

OK, listen to what I have to say on corruption. And I think I have quite a bit to say. I wrote a book recently where I also had a whole chapter on that issue called, "Reforming the Unreformable."

Nigeria does have a problem with corruption. And so do many other countries, including developed countries. I don't like the fact that when people mention the name Nigeria, the next thing they say is corruption.

This is a country of 170 million people; 99.9 percent of them are honest, hard-working citizens who just want to get on with their lives and they want a government that delivers for them.

What we've said is that in order to help block any leakages and help to, you know, stop any attempts at corruption or taking monies, we must build electronic platforms. We must distance people from the money.

These things were recommended by the World Bank and the IMF. I used to work at the World Bank. We are doing them.

And I strongly believe that we lack institutions. We lack processes.

Now, what President Goodluck Jonathan has done now is to call the judiciary, the legislature and the executive arm for the first time to meet together on this issue and say, this is not just about government, this is about all of us coming together, because even if you catch somebody, they go to the courts and they are let off lightly.

The president can't do anything about that. The judicial system also has to be strengthened.

Legislators also have to crack down. They themselves have to work at also being transparent and helping the executive.

But for me, also, in addition to doing that, we need to stop talking and identify the specifics, like you mentioned oil leakages. Let me mention two things quickly.

The first one is the oil theft that is 150,000 barrels a day --

AMANPOUR: Which is huge.

OKONJO-IWEALA: -- a month -- which is huge. Yes. I admit that. And we can't afford -- I'll tell you; my thesis on corruption is we are still a poor country. We cannot afford any leakage.

We also need the international community to weigh in. We have -- Mexico and Nigeria are suffering from this problem, you can check. Mexico has (inaudible) losing 25,000 barrels a day. And they found (inaudible).

In our case, we have international people who also buy that stolen oil. We need them to treat this stolen oil like stolen diamonds, the blood diamonds. Make it blood oil. Help us so that those people don't have a market to sell this stuff.

That's one. And we ourselves should commit to fighting -- and we are fighting that.

AMANPOUR: Let me ask you about that, because you also have challenges with electricity. You mentioned you're very rich in oil and people just simply don't understand why there still seem to be so many problems with electricity.

And it might seem, you know, weird to pick on that one thing, but it is very prevalent. I asked your president about this during an interview I did by satellite when he was at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Let's just see what he had to say to me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOODLUCK JONATHAN, PREISDENT OF NIGERIA: That is one area that Nigerians are quite pleased with the government, that's a commitment to improve power. It's working. So if you are saying something different, I'm really surprised. That is one area, one area that we will -- civil society members agree that government has kept faith with its promise.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Now, that interview caused a bit of a hullabaloo, as I think you know, in Nigeria. And yet, the World Bank has said that half -- more than half the Nigerian population doesn't have any access to the power grid.

OKONJO-IWEALA: As you know, Nigeria became a democracy again when President Obasanjo came into power in 1999. Two decades prior to that, there was hardly any investment in electricity.

If you've neglected a sector for that long, you've not invested, you've not even maintained your basic facilities, it's not going to happen that fast. It takes time.

That month, when you interviewed the president, the polls showed, independently, scientifically (inaudible) that they are in technical partnership with dialogue. That 54 percent of Nigerians felt there was some improvement. They do it monthly.

Now this month, they've surveyed and they've showed this going down, because 800 megawatts has been taken off the grid, which is while they are maintaining the grid.

AMANPOUR: Well, let me ask you, because businesses apparently say that this problem with electricity is causing them to, you know, be reluctant to invest.

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: They need this investment...

OKONJO-IWEALA: Nigeria is not the only country. Almost every developing country has a problem with power, as you know. India has it. South Africa has it. South Africa is far better off because they've invested much more.

But many developing countries, even China, they are struggling with keeping up with infrastructure.

Now, what we are doing in Nigeria?

We have accepted that the government is not the best place to run the power sector, that if we want this country and this economy to do better, we just have to get out. And Nigeria is pursuing one of the most sweeping privatization programs in any country in the world.

We are selling off everything. The generation capacity, the distribution capacity in the country, government is only retaining one thing -- transmission.

AMANPOUR: Well, on that note, Madam Minister, thank you for joining me.

OKONJO-IWEALA: Thank you, Christiane, for having me.

thegoodjoehunt:

What about Oil revenue, what these guys are seeing, can it be compared to the Militry rulers?

I am saying most of the military rulers were corrupt but performed better with less resources.

Sunny_bobo:

Be honest, how old were you when IBB and Abacha ruled?

From the comments you made above, it's obvious you weren't even in secondary school then. How can you compare the level of development now to that era? The worst democracy is still better than the best military regime.