In 2010 when other Presidential candidates
were declaring their presidential interest with
Six Points Agenda, Four Points Agenda even
Seven Points Agenda, President Good Luck
Ebele Jonathan declared his own with
“Transformation Agenda”.
With Transformation Agenda being a novel
idea in the nation’s socio-political mantra,
many analysts and commentators were
confused of what the President actually meant
by transforming Nigeria. Some gave
conceptual meaning to it by asking “Does he
mean a dramatic change in Nigeria?” If true,
then the president is only going to work in the
area of Nigeria’s Foreign Policy! But, little did
they know that, what President Jonathan
meant by transforming Nigeria was an
integrated development that cut across all
sectors of the national economy. His reason
was because, the challenges facing Nigeria as
a country were too numerous to be limited to
only six or four points agenda as other
contenders did!
However, on assumption of office, our
amiable and pragmatic President left no one
in doubt about the tasks ahead! Hence, he
rolled up his sleeves and hit the ground
running by first of all assembling the doyen of
Nigeria’s crème de le cream who will help him
in the transformation programme. As a result
of this, within one year, Nigerians and the
entire world began to feel and acknowledge
the giant strides of the Jonathan’s
administration. That was when cynical
Nigerians began to have a rethink!
Their change of mind however did not come
easily; rather they were compelled to change
their position because of the undeniable
wonders of the Jonathan’s transformation
programme. In fact, if the blind man or
woman in the country cannot see the wonders
of the transformation programme, certainly,
he or she perceives transformation in the
Agricultural Sector, Power Sector, Education
Sector, Mining Sector, Transportation Sector,
Oil and Gas Sector, Rehabilitation and
Expansion of National Infrastructure as well as
Job Creation among numerous others.
The Education Sector for instance got an
increased allocation from the paltry N224
billion in 2007 to N634 billion in 2013. This
figure however did not include the improved
access to education which is seen in the
building of 125 Al-majiri schools, thereby
removing more 9.5 million Al-majiris from the
street to modern class room comparable only
to those found in Europe and America. The
transformation train also moved to the tertiary
institutions by establishing three additional
Federal Universities in the North, bringing the
total number of Federal Universities
established by President Good Luck Jonathan
administration to 12. Still within the education
sector, the Jonathan’s Government
rehabilitated 352 laboratories in 2013 alone,
while 72 new laboratories were constructed in
all the Unity Schools and Federal cum State
Polytechnics in the country.
In the Agricultural Sector, the Jonathan
administration achieved what his
predecessors could not achieve during their
reign in office! With the introduction of the e-
wallet system, brief case-farmers who were
hitherto notorious for sabotaging the efforts
of the past regimes in the agricultural sector
were dislodged. As at the end of last year, over
4.2 million farmer’s nation-wide got fertilizers
at highly subsidized rate under the Growth
Enhancement Scheme (GES). That success
alone led to the production of over 8 million
metric tons of food stuffs in the country, while
at the same time, bringing down the cost of
food importation in to the country from the
exorbitant rate of N1.1 trillion in 2011 to N648
billion last year. By the end of this year, it is
expected that Nigeria will move from food
importing country to becoming a net exporter
of food.
Similarly, with the successful introduction and
implementation of the National Industrial
Revolution Plan (NIRP) whose mandate and
purpose is to industrialize and diversify our
national economy from overdependence on
oil and gas industry to agro-processing, light
manufacturing, petrochemicals among others
which is attributed to the wonders of the
Jonathan’s Transformation Agenda, Nigeria is
now better positioned to join the next
emerging global economic giants known as
MINT. The MINT countries are; Mexico,
Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey.
Also, with our rebased Gross Domestic
Product (GDP), Nigeria is now the largest
economy in Africa and 26th in the world with
$510 billion worth of GDP. It will be recalled
that, the last time our GDP was rebased was in
1990; a time the telecommunication subsector,
publishing, entertainment, ICT among other
subsectors were not captured in the
calculation of our GDP. Hence, the rebasing of
our GDP by the Jonathan’s administration has
the capacity of attracting multibillion dollar
worth of Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) in to
the country in the nearest future!
The manufacturing sector also got an
unprecedented boost under the
transformation programme of the Jonathan’s
administration. For example, Nigeria has
moved from being an importer of cement to
an exporter of cement to the outside world; as
the country’s cement production capacity has
increased from 2 million metric tons in 2002
to 28.5 million metric tons in 2013. And it is
expected that, the wonders of the Jonathan’s
Transformation Agenda would double that feat
by the end of this year.
In the area of job creation, the Jonathan’s
administration in the year 2013 alone created
about 1.6 million new jobs and has added
about 500,224 jobs for the first and second
quarters of this year. This is outside the 70
percent of Nigerians who work in the informal
sector. With the sustenance of the Youth
Enterprise with Innovation (YOU WIN), the
Subsidy Re-investment and Empowerment
Programme (SURE-P) and the Presidential Job
Creation Committee of the Jonathan’s
administration which has the mandate of
creating 3 million jobs yearly, it is believed
that an end to the high rate of unemployment
is now in view!
The Transportation Sector is also not left out,
as massive construction and rehabilitation of
our road and rail system is ongoing at an
unprecedented level. With the construction of
Abuja-Abaji-Lokoja road, the construction of
Kano-Maiduguri road, the 2nd Niger Bridge,
the rehabilitation of Shagamu-Ore-Benin dual
carriage road, the rehabilitation of Onitsha-
Enugu-Port Harcourt dual carriage among
many others, Nigerians can now drive to any
length without fear of the usual carnage on
our road or Ember demons!
Because of the wonders of the Jonathan’s
Transformation Programme, Nigeria has
being named as the number one investment
destination in Africa by the influential United
Nations Conference on Trade and
Development. This is why the entire world
converged in Abuja in May this year for the
World Economic Forum for Africa.
The wonders of the Jonathan’s transformation
programme are countless as it cut across all
sectors, but, for the sake of time and space, let
me stop here until Jonathan declares his
intention for the February 14 2015 Presidential
Election.

By. Charlesdonald

Nigerians are so blind, dat they dont see a trend of development dat we need to maintain for at least anoda 4 yrs..