Over his four years in office, President Goodluck Jonathan has transformed Nigeria from a sleeping giant into a nation that has become the largest economy in Africa and one of the economic giants of the world.

His reforms have touched all sectors of Nigeria’s economy, from agriculture, to manufacturing, to ICT. He has diversified the economy, lessened Nigeria’s dependence on oil and increased employment opportunities. He has also strengthened Nigeria’s educational sector, providing the next generation with the skills and training they need to thrive.

President Jonathan has created millions of jobs in the last 4 years. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, 1.6 million jobs were created in 2013 alone.

Below are just 10 of the many reforms instituted by President Jonathan that are helping to move Nigeria’s economy forward:

1. Boosting the Agricultural Sector: When President Jonathan came into office, Nigeria’s agricultural sector was in desperate need of reform. With a sure and steady hand, President Jonathan revolutionized the sector. His efforts have focused on ensuring food security, reducing expenditure of foreign exchange on food imports, diversifying the economy, generating foreign trade and creating jobs. Through the introduction of the e-wallet system, he put an end to the corruption that was once rife in the agricultural sector.

2. Reviving the Automotive Industry: President Jonathan has also put in place an automotive policy, which has attracted significant foreign investment and created jobs. The Director-General of the National Automotive Council (NAC) recently estimated that the automotive industry now has the potential to generate over 200,000 jobs. 

3. Supporting Domestic Cement Production: President Jonathan has introduced a cement policy geared at increasing production capacity and quality of cement produced in Nigeria. Already, $1.2 billion has been saved in foreign exchange demand through sufficiency in domestic cement production.

4. Establishing the Sovereign Wealth Fund: The sovereign wealth fund has been established under President Jonathan’s administration with $1 billion invested to save for future generations and also fund infrastructural spending and stabilization of the Nigerian economy. 

5. Providing Employment Opportunities for Youths: President Jonathan has introduced numerous programmes to provide economic opportunities for Nigerian youths. He spearheaded the YouWIN programme, aimed at creating youth employment and alleviating poverty. The programme will create 80,000 -110,000 jobs over 3 years. He also introduced SURE-P (The Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme), which has already created 185,000 jobs across the country.

6. Reducing Inflation: Under President Jonathan’s leadership, the inflation rate has been reduced to 8% from 14%. This is due in part to the President’s agricultural sector reforms, which have led to a drop in food prices.

7. Supporting the ICT Sector: The strides made by President Jonathan in the ICT sector have made Nigeria the largest internet market in Africa by volume, with about 48.4 million users.

8. Privatising the Power Sector: President Jonathan successfully privatized the power sector, positioning the sector to respond adequately to growing power demands and ensuring that Nigerian businesses have the stable power supply they need to thrive and grow.

9. Rebasing the Economy: President Jonathan was able to rebase the Nigerian economy, securing Nigeria’s place as the largest economy in Africa and the 23rd in the world with a GDP of about $503 billion. 

10. Increasing Foreign Direct Investment: Under President Jonathan’s administration, Nigeria has become the number one destination in Africa for foreign direct investment. This development has brought about predictions that Nigeria will be the third fastest growing economy in the world in 2015 according to CNN business. Under President Jonathan, Nigeria hosted the World Economic Forum on Africa for the first time in 2014, showcasing Nigeria’s impressive economic growth to a global audience and attracting further foreign investment.

President Jonathan has done what no other administration has been able to do in reviving the Nigerian economy in 4 short years, moving Nigeria forward.  Help ensure that our economy continues to grow by voting for President Jonathan and the PDP on February 14!

Sincerely, 

The Forward Nigeria Team

Please let it make frontpage

Below is nice piece by Prof. Soludo: God Bless Prof. Soludo.




[b]"The parallels with the Shagari regime are troubling. First, at the time of oil boom, Nigeria again went on a consumption spree such that the budgets of the last five years can best be described as ‘consumption budgets’, with new borrowing by the federal government exceeding the actual expenditure on critical infrastructure.

Second, not one penny was added to the stock of foreign reserves at a period Nigeria earned hundreds of billions from oil. For comparisons, President Obasanjo met about $5 billion in foreign reserves, and the average monthly oil price for the 72 months he was in office was $38, and yet he left $43 billion in foreign reserves after paying $12 billion to write-off Nigeria’s external debt. In the last five years, the average monthly oil price has been over $100, and the quantity also higher but our foreign reserves have been declining and exchange rate depreciating.
I note that when I assumed office as Governor of CBN, the stock of foreign reserves was $10 billion.
The average monthly oil price during my 60 months
in office was $59, but foreign reserve reached the all- time peak of $62 billion (and despite paying $12 billion for external debt, and losing over $15 billion during the unprecedented global financial and economic crisis) I left behind $45 billion. Recall also that our exchange rate continuously appreciated during this period and was at N117 to the dollar before the global crisis and we deliberately allowed it to depreciate in order to preserve our reserves. My calculation is that if the economy was better managed, our foreign reserves should have been between $102 –$118 billion and exchange rate around N112 before the fall in oil prices. As of now, the reserves should be around $90 billion and exchange rate no higher than N125 per dollar."
[/b]

[b]"Fourth, poverty incidence and unemployment are
also simultaneously at all-time high levels. According
to the NBS, poverty incidence grew to 69% in 2010
and projected to be 71% in 2011, with
unemployment at 24%. This is the worst record in
Nigeria’s history, and the paradox is that this
happened during the unprecedented oil boom.
One theme I picked up listening to the campaign
rallies as well as to some of the propagandists is the
confusion about measuring government
“performance”. Most people seem to confuse
‘inputs’, or ‘processes’ with output. Earlier this
month, I had a dinner with a group of friends (14 of
us) and we were chit-chatting about Nigeria. One of
us, an associate of President Jonathan veered off to
repeat a propaganda mantra that Jonathan had
outperformed his predecessors. He also reminded us that Jonathan re-based the GDP and that Nigeria is now the biggest economy in Africa; etc. It was fun listening to the response by others. In sum, the
group agreed that the President had ‘outperformed’
his predecessors except that it is in reverse order."

[/b]


[b]First, my friend was educated that re-basing the GDP is no achievement: it is a routine statistical exercise, and depending on the base year that you choose, you get a different GDP figure. Re-basing the GDP has nothing to do with government policy. Besides, as naira-dollar exchange rate continues to depreciate, the GDP in current dollars will also shrink considerably soon.
We were reminded of Jonathan’s agricultural
‘revolution’. But someone cut in and noted that for all the propaganda, the growth rate of the agricultural sector in the last five years still remains far below the performance under Obasanjo. One of us reminded him that no other president had presided over the slaughter of about 15,000 people by insurgents in a peacetime; no other president earned up to 50% of the amount of resources the current government earned from oil and yet with very little outcomes; no other president had the rate of borrowing; none had significant forex earnings and yet did not add one penny to foreign reserves but losing international reserves at a time of boom; no other president had a depreciating exchange rate at a time of export boom; at no time in Nigeria’s history has poverty reached 71% (even under Abacha, it was 67 -70%); and under
no other president did unemployment reach 24%.
Surely, these are unprecedented records and he
surely ‘outperformed’ his predecessors! What a
satire!
[/b]


[b]"One of those present took the satire to some level by comparing Jonathan to the ‘performance’ of the
former Governor of Anambra, Peter Obi. He noted
that while Obi gloated about ‘savings’, there is no
signature project to remember his regime except
that his regime took the first position among all
states in Nigeria in the democratization of poverty—-mass impoverishment of the people of Anambra.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics,
poverty rose under his watch in Anambra from 20%
in 2004 (lowest in Nigeria then) to 68% in 2010 (a
238% deterioration!). Our friend likened it to a father who had no idea of what to do with his resources and was celebrating his fat bank account while his children were dying of kwashiorkor. He pointed out that since it is the likes of Peter Obi who are the advisers to Jonathan on how to manage the economy (thereby confusing micromanagement which you do as a trader with macro governance) it is little wonder that poverty is fast becoming another name for Nigeria. It was a very hilarious evening."

"My advice to President Jonathan and his handlers is
to stop wasting their time trying to campaign on his
job record. Those who have decided to vote for him
will not do so because he has taken Nigeria to the
moon. His record on the economy is a clear ‘F’ grade. As one reviews the laundry list of micro interventions the government calls its achievements, one wonders whether such list is all that the government could deliver with an unprecedented oil boom and an unprecedented public debt accumulation. I can clearly see why reasonable people are worried."
[/b][b][/b]