Umoru Henry
24 April 2008
Lagos — STAKEHOLDERS in the economic sector warned yesterday that if Nigeria must achieve the Vision 2020 target, there was the need for President Umaru Yar'Adua to effectively implement the nation's budget and ensure his total commitment to good leadership ethics.
Addressing journalists in Abuja, the President/CEO, L.D. Communications, Mr. Reginald Ibe, urged government to sustain its anti-graft posture as a condition to achieving the Vision 2020 dream.
He said a group of experts had concluded plans to put in place a special people's economic summit geared towards establishing a feedback mechanism whereby the voices of the masses would be channelled into the policies of government.
Mr. Ibe said the summit would assist the Federal Government in the achievement of its reforms, the seven-point agenda as well as Vision 2020, adding that the just inaugurated National Council and the National Steering Committee on Vision 2020 stood to benefit from the outcome of the proposed summit.
His words: "Nigeria is once again at the threshold of history. Some say the nation is at a T-junction to heaven or hell. On the streets, it is a mix of heaven and hell. There is opulent affluence oozing out everywhere you look in the big cities and unimaginable poverty, hunger, misery, violence and insecurity walking on four legs in the slums, surrounding and servicing the big cities.
"In the slums, you can smell anger on foreheads and voices ready to explode at the least provocation. Nigeria has grown into a land of confounding wealth enveloped by unthinkable want and misery.
"We need a bottom-up approach to economic policy decisions. We hope to make government change the situation by engaging Nigerians to come and make input into government policies. We have been working on this programme for sometime now.
We have done a number of engagements at the National Planning Commission. We want to drive the 2020 concept home. We are going to have contributions by the various experts in the private and public sectors at the programme," he said.
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