INTERACTION WITH THE YOUTHS
President Jonathan inherited a nation facing several long standing challenges, infrastructures have long been neglected, the threat from Boko Haram was already growing and the benefit of Nigerian growth were not equally shared but with a sure and steady hand, His Excellency has maintained focus on improving the lives of Nigerians whether from the North or South, Christian or Muslim. His implementation of his transformation agenda has already yielded positive result across the country. As a sign of his commitment towards Nigerian youths, who make up for 70% of thenation’s population, His Excellency Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan engaged young Nigerian entertainers, businessmen, celebrities and entrepreneurs at a youth interactive programme tagged Meet The President. The event which held at the Eko hotel ground ball room Lagos, had in attendance a carefully selected crop of young Nigerians. Here are some excerpts from the interaction.
Question : I am one of the biggest fans of your administration and even people who are not here, who are either supporting the opposition have been fans of your administration. I think a lot of the issues they are concerned about is why didn’t Mr. President take (military) action against Boko Haram? And I think if you can answer that question to all the Nigerians who are watching here it might actually help you win hearts and minds. They are wondering why now you are just going to Baga? They are wondering why the military are just entering Sambisa forest? Why couldn’t we do that six months ago, they are wondering why you chose to go to Paris when you could have gone to Chibok that you just did recently. So the question Mr. President is why now?
Mr. President: First let me use this opportunity to congratulate the Army and what they are doing now. And let me use this opportunity to call on Nigerians to encourage them. Some days back, Cameroun took the streets to commend and appreciate their Armed Forces. The challenges we are facing are much more than that of Cameroun. But here in Nigeria, sometimes we even admonish unnecessarily the Armed Forces. If you’ve been listening to us, you will know that we’ve been trying to get the appropriate equipment to confront the challenges we have. Fighting terror or terrorists, they are
not conventional fighters. If we are facing a war with another country, both countries obey international best practices when it comes to fighting. We are controlled by the kind of equipment we use, you must not use chemical weapons, you must not use biological weapons; you must know the caliber of weapons for offences and so on. But criminals don’t obey these laws, so to tackle them; you must get some specific weapons that you require. If you use certain weapon or aggression you are not supposed to use, the international community will be after you. They have even started accusing us of human right abuses, meanwhile Nigerians are being killed, which means that there are some categories of weapons you need to prosecute such fights which, over the period we’ve been trying to get. At the beginning we thought we were going to crush Boko Haram with what we had but it proved abortive so we had to recalibrate our security architecture and that is what we’ve done up to this moment and we’ve not yet gotten all we’ve paid for. But at least we’ve gotten about 65 to 70% and that is why the prosecution of the war is getting better every day. It is not that I waited. It is wrong to say that we waited until elections. These elections would have been held on the 14th of February. In that case, this would have been done before that 14th of February. It has nothing to do with Elections. I feel sad that as a Nation, we play politics with serious National issues. People must separate serious issues that affect all Nigerians from the politics. Jonathan is President today, some other person will be President tomorrow. Nigeria is our own country. We must have a country before we have a President.
Question : My name is Raheem Ajayi and I’m a Consultant. Why is it that it is when elections are fast approaching that Mr. President gathers young men and women of Nigeria to discuss? What is the plan of Mr. President to have young men and women as a kind of Committee that will advise because as a President of this county, there is a big wall around you of people that tell you what they want you to hear, but the second option is having a selected people one at a time, maybe monthly, that will tell you the feelings of the people on the street.
Mr. President: Thank you, there are two branches to the question - first is why is it that it is only when elections are close that the President starts interacting with people whether young or old and the second one is the issue of using young people in Government.
First, all over the world, governance is a serious business that is why people feel that when elections are getting close, we spend the greater part going round and of course if the President or Governor is going round for campaigns, governance will suffer. That is why after inaugurating a President, you spend more time governing. I would have loved to go to the six geopolitical zones even quarterly to have town hall meetings and so on but sometimes it is almost impossible. In fact for this program, I promised that I was going to be here one hour before the time so that we will start exactly at 7pm on the dot. But it wasn’t possible and that is just for today. So if a President will host this kind of forum regularly the government will suffer in many ways. That is why all over the world, in most cases, when it is getting close to election almost like close the government down, you start going round to campaign, and of course based on the control of electoral bodies in Nigeria, that is INEC, if you do this regularly, Governance will suffer. Of course I agree with you that this could be done from time to time but not regularly.
The issue of young people, in this administration we have been using a number of young people in one way or the other. But I think the issue is to increase the number. As a nation in terms of young people getting involved in governance, of course a number of young people are involved in governance at local government level in most states. From the Chairman down are young people, at the state level in most states, more than 80% of the state assembly members are young people. The commissioners at the state level, a number of them are very young people. It is at the federal level that you see that most of the ministers are fairly elderly. The youngest minister in my cabinet has left to be the deputy governor of his state, Minister of State (2) for Foreign Affairs, Dr. Nurudeen from Jigawa State, he’s the youngest member of my cabinet. I think I will increase the number of young people in my cabinet in the next dispensation. Also, at the advisory level, my Senior Special Assistant on Youths and Student matters has just finished his Masters degree and we brought him in. My assistant on Job Creation is also a very young person from Benue state. So we have young people at that level. But at the Cabinet level, I believe we will increase the number so young people are playing significant role in the government.
Gbemileke Oscar: On a lighter note sir, what is the temperature of your chair right now sir? Mr. President: It is still comfortable (Laughs) Gbemileke Oscar: Thank you very much and on a final note, do not forget that your PVC is your vote, make sure you get it and vote!