Council (FEC) carried a huge size of round baked cake along. The day was last Friday and the occasion was the emergency FEC convened by President Goodluck Jonathan to deliberate on a fiscal strategy paper aimed at producing a Medium term fiscal framework for the 2014/2015 and 2016 budget. The emergency FEC meeting hinged basically on issues pertaining to revenue forecast and expenditure of the country within these years. It was out of the ordinary that after this particular council meeting, ministers were coming out of the council on a Friday with cakes in their hands.
“Confirmed; that must be the parting gift Mr. President may have decided to give his ministers as farewell parcels after sacking them”, one of the Journalists was heard whispering to some of his colleagues. He was referring to the cakes. As the ministers walked hurriedly along the corridor to their waiting vehicles, the journalists who were standing in groups chatting in low tunes had confusion clearly written on their faces. “Are you sure some of these ministers were sacked?” One of them asked. “Why did you ask?” one of his colleagues demanded to know.
In his explanation, the inquisitive newsman said although the cakes were enough confirmation that something close to their sack may have taken place, the copious smiles on their faces rather than indignation and trepidation forbade one to interpret that they had truly been fired. It was later discovered that the cakes were shared among cabinet members by the Vice President, Namadi Sambo who was marking his birthday that Friday. Sambo who has been in Saudi Arabia for the Ramadan fast celebrated his birthday in absentia.
This was the extent to which report that the special meeting summoned by the president was going to be a cabinet reshuffle and changes in the executive arm of government generated anxiety among Nigerians. According to the report last week, fear of cabinet shake-up had on Thursday gripped many ministers as Jonathan convened the emergency Federal Executive Council meeting, as against its statutory meetings usually held on Wednesdays. The report noted further that with the resignation of the Minister of State for Health, Dr. Mohammed Pate, a cabinet shake-up was imminent. Another development that fuelled suspicion of an impending cabinet shake up was report penultimate Monday that five northern governors namely Babangida Aliyu (Niger); Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto); Sule Lamido (Jigawa); Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano) and Muritala Nyako (Adamawa) had in a meeting with President Jonathan demanded the sacking of two ministers, Deziani Allison (Petroleum) and Stella Oduah (Aviation).
But minister of information, Mr. Labaran Maku told State House Correspondents after the meeting that contrary to the insinuations, FEC focused its discussions on a memo presented by the coordinating minister for the economy and minister of finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, with the overall fiscal objective of the government to grow the economy within 2014 and 2016.
Noting that the meeting was called to discuss the medium term fiscal framework and the fiscal strategy paper for the 2014/2016 appropriation year, Maku said, “We have been discussing the medium term fiscal strategy paper forwarded to us by the CME. We discussed the planned strategy for the budget between 2014 and 2015. The medium term fiscal strategy and the fiscal policy strategy paper are contained in the 2014, 2015 and 2016 fiscal revenue framework as well as the expenditure framework for the budget of this year. The idea of bringing this to FEC was for us to intensively discuss the budget scorecard for the year between 2014 and 2016 and also to look critically at the revenue we expect and the expenditure for this year and the overall fiscal objective of the government to grow the economy within this period.
“So, we are looking at the budget objective, budget policy and the direction that we want the economy to grow and how it could impact on the welfare and well being of the people of Nigeria. It’s a technical paper, we have begun discussion on it; it is work in progress”. We also looked at the global environment to ensure that whatever we come up with will take into account the global realities as well as our local needs. We also want to ensure that this year budget like last year comes early. The early passage of the budget will also improve execution. Last year it was October; so, this year we are hoping to keep the momentum of early passage of the budget. At least submission to the NASS should be early so that by January we should have the budget passed”.
While it is common knowledge that every statutory body holds extraordinary meetings apart from their normal meetings, every move made by the president or the entire presidency of recent had always been misconstrued to serve certain political interest. “How could they have asked for the sack of the ministers, when they are not from their states?” A presidency source was said to have queried. Sometime this year, a similar report that the president was planning to sack no fewer than 10 ministers from his cabinet had sparked up anxiety among the ministers. But the president had been insisting that he should be allowed to face issues of governance, especially his bid to revamp the economy as he promised Nigerians during his election campaigns.
How Far Can NASENI Go On Locally Made Aircraft?
Did Vice President Namadi Sambo mean what he told the board of the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) last week? Sambo directed the agency to advance the country`s businesses by producing made in Nigeria aircraft components, heavy duty trucks, tanks and tropicalised electric cars. He said the agency has a main objective to ensure that government policies are executed to the benefit of the people.
Sambo who inaugurated the agency in his office on behalf of President Jonathan last week noted that in line with the transformation agenda of the present administration, the agency is expected to achieve technological advancement in locally made aircraft components in collaborating with the private sector, manufacturing heavy duty trucks, tanks and tropicalised electric cars as well as the production of multi-purpose electric motors and generators, all in Nigeria.
The primary target of NASENI is to empower SMEs through impartation of technologies, engineering principles and practices for production of equipment that will meet international standard as well as sustenance of a flourishing local capital goods or industry. If the declaration by the Executive Vice Chairman of NASENI when he launched the first ever wholly made-in-Nigeria motor cycle called ‘NASENI M1” is anything to go by, then Nigeria is gradually becoming a developed country. Haruna said by NASENI’s reckoning, a country could only be self reliant and economically developed only when her citizens begin to exercise and assert their ingenuities in productive capacities or real time manufacturing toward technology advancement of the country.
He added that as a nation, Nigerians must demonstrate real capacities for engineering technology development and production of manufactured goods and services. He said that is why NASENI had taken this bold step to demonstrate to Nigerians that Mr. President’s dream is both realizable and is even being realised. While launching the motorcycle, Haruna called on the Federal Government to put a ban on the importation of motocycles into Nigeria the Nigeria market as he declared bravely that Nigeria has perfected the technologyand manufacturing capacity to produce motorcycles in mass in Nnewi, South-East Nigeria.
Source: Leadership
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