President Muhammadu Buhari has enjoined the people to continue to support his government’s efforts to fix Nigeria.
He made the passionate appeal in a broadcast to the nation on Sunday, marking his one year in office.
Buhari assumed office as Nigeria’s President on May 29, 2015, having defeated a sitting President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in the 2015 general elections.
He confirmed that a considerable portion of stolen assets are at different stages of recovery, assuring that full details of the status and categories of the assets will be published by the Ministry of Information and updated periodically.
President Buhari described the last one year of the administration as being a year of triumph, consolidation, pains and achievements, adding “By age, instinct and experience, my preference is to look forward, to prepare for the challenges that lie ahead and rededicate the administration to the task of fixing Nigeria.
On putting the economy back on track, he noted that “The measures we must take, may lead to hardships. The problems Nigerians have faced over the last year have been many and varied. But the real challenge for this government has been reconstructing the spine of the Nigerian state.
“The last twelve months have been spent collaborating with all arms of government to revive our institutions so that they are more efficient and fit for purpose.”
On recovery of looted funds and assets, he had this to say, “We are also engaged in making recoveries of stolen assets some of which are in different jurisdictions. The processes of recovery can be tedious and time consuming, but today I can confirm that thus far: significant amount of assets have been recovered.
“A considerable portion of these are at different stages of recovery. Full details of the status and categories of the assets will now be published by the Ministry of Information and updated periodically. When forfeiture formalities are completed these monies will be credited to the treasury and be openly and transparently used in funding developmental projects and the public will be informed.”
The President said that the good news about low prices of crude oil is that it has has provided us with an opportunity to restructure our economy and diversify.
He said, we are in the process of promoting agriculture, livestocks, exploiting our solid mineral resources and expanding our industrial and manufacturing base. That way, we will import less and make the social investments necessary to allow us to produce a large and skilled workforce.
He assured that the “Central Bank of Nigeria will offer more fiscal incentives for business that prove capable of manufacturing products that are internationally competitive. We remain committed to reforming the regulatory framework, for investors by improving the ease of doing business in Nigeria.
To assist the women, the President said, “I am very pleased to announce that the government will shortly be launching the national women’s empowerment fund, which I have approved to provide N1.6 billion in micro-finance loans to women across the nation to assist in rehabilitating the economies of rural communities, particularly those impacted by the insurgency and conflict.”
President Buhari paid a special tribute to our gallant men and women of the armed forces who are in harm’s way so that the rest of us can live and go about our business in safety. According to him, their work is almost done, noting that the nation owes them a debt of gratitude.
On the foreign scene, Buhari said, “We want to assure our neighbours, friends and development partners that Nigeria is firmly committed to democratic principles. We are ready partners in combating terrorism, cyber-crimes, control of communicable diseases and protection of the environment.
“Following on the Paris Agreement, COP 21, we are fully committed to halting and reversing desertification. Elsewhere, we will intensify efforts to tackle erosion, ocean surge, flooding and oil spillage which I referred to earlier by implementing the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report.
“We are grateful to the international community notably France, the US, UK and China for their quick response in helping to tackle the recent Ebola outbreak in our sub-region. We also acknowledge the humanity shown by the Italian and German governments in the treatment of boat people, many fleeing from our sub-region because of lack of economic opportunity. We thank all our partners especially several countries in the EU.
“We appreciate the valuable work that the UN agencies, particularly UNICEF, ICRC, the World Food Program have been doing.
“We must also appreciate the World Bank, the Gates Foundation, the Global Fund and Educate A Child of Qatar for the excellent work in our health, education and other sectors.”
