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| President Jonathan |
President
Goodluck Jonathan has attributed the wobbling state of the nation’s economy to
the abandonment of long-term economic plans in favour of emergency options.
The Nation reports President Jonathan,
who spoke yesterday during the New Year Celebration Service at the Dunamis
International Gospel Centre, Abuja, said his administration was taking
corrective measures to address the issue by reverting to the old days when the
economy was run on long-term plan models.
He
said with the collective efforts of all Nigerians, the country’s challenges,
including terror and the dwindling oil prices, will be defeated just like the
Ebola Virus Disease a few months back.
“For
you to achieve anything, you must have a clear vision. Even if you look at what
we have been doing as a nation, you will really see that before this time when
the country used to have this 25-year plan, the budget was based on 25 years
clear plan for the country. So you know where you are going for 25 years. Then
it is broken down into five-year plan with an annual budget and we knew where
we were going,” he said.
“But
after sometime, things collapsed and we run government on emergency basis and
you see government started wobbling. We are going back to those good days when
we have vision. We have plan for agriculture, we have plan for industry, we
have plan for automobile and many other areas.
“If
you have a vision, any proposal that comes in, no matter how good they are,
must fall into your vision for it to go through.”
He
noted that the prayers of committed Christians and religious leaders in the
past three years, have made Nigeria overcome both external and internal
conspiracies against the country.
Noting
that the nation has been calm on the issue of terrorism since the Christmas
period, he expressed confidence that Nigeria will overcome its challenges,
including terrorism, adding that the calmness was achieved as a result of
prayers of Nigerians and what the government was doing underground.
“With
your prayers, surely as a nation, we will get to where our vision will take us
to,” he stated.
He
said he would do his best to come up with prgrammes that will help the masses, stressing that Nigerians comment daily on the twin problems of insecurity and
corruption, assuring that everything is being done to curb the excesses.
He
said government is coming out with programmes and plans to clean up the Aegean-stable.
“These are things that you don't just use magical wand to wave off otherwise
there won’t have been corruption in Nigeria.”
He
pointed out that it is not just about trying corruption… and looking at one
person, arrest the person and show him on television, it is about strengthening
institutions and coming up with credible plans to make sure that anybody who
gets involved with corruption, the system must have a way of detecting him and
punishing him.”
“Until
you set such a system on ground, you cannot talk about corruption, you will
just be celebrating corruption.”
He
noted that 2015 is a turning point for the country as he asked for more prayers
for God’s wisdom to be bestowed on politicians in order not to set the country
ablaze in their strides to achieve their personal agenda.
Delivering
the sermon entitled, ‘The Life of Vision’, the Senior Pastor of the church, Dr.
Paul Enenche, noted that how one begins anything is critical to how it ends.
He
said: “To live by chance is to end by chance. Without a clear vision,
stagnation is inevitable. Those who see clearer run faster. Vision is the
compass of destiny.”
The
church also prayed for the President and the nation for the success of the 2015
elections.
The congregation also
prayed for the God’s grace and courage for the President to conduct credible
elections as they prayed against anyone that wants to get to office without the
votes of the people.
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