Eleven years to go before the Year 2020, President Umaru Yar'adua's oft-re-peated promise to take Nigeria to the league of the world's 20 largest economies is but a pipedream with no articulated vision, no plan of action and no budgetary provision for its realisation.

This much became clear yesterday when Minister of National Planning Dr. Shamsudeen Usman said the Vision document which is to serve as the guide for the dream's actualisation is still not ready.

Usman, who spoke in Abuja while chairing a meeting of the National Steering Committee on Nigeria Vision 2020, said the Federal Executive Council has given the Commission and other stakeholders a period of nine months to produce the document. The document is therefore expected to be ready by November, by which time Yar'adua's first four year term in office will be more than half way through.

According to Usman, since the introduction of the vision by the Olusegun Obasanjo Administration, no working document to give direction for its actualisation has been developed. He however blamed non-allocation of funds over the years for the failure to produce the vision document, saying adequate provision was however made in this year's budget.

He said, "We are taking concrete steps to go from merely mouthing Nigeria's Vision 2020 to beginning the arduous task of involving all key stakeholders in properly articulating the vision. We are therefore expected to run with the project in order to regain the lost time and ensure the vision document is produced in record time."

He added, "As somebody who participated in the Vision 2010, its part of the unfortunate things that have happened to Nigeria. And I hope we are not going to make the same mistake. The problem we have is that the vision 2020 was conceived by Olusegun Obasanjo over two years ago. Unfortunately, ever since then, nothing has happened. We have been talking about vision 2020, but the effort to articulate it by getting all key stakeholders of the Nigeria project to be part of that process is what we are starting today. This means we are about two years behind but for me I am a very hopeful person about this country, and I believe it is possible."

The National Steering Committee was inaugurated in April 2008 by President Umaru Musa Yar'adua to, among others, coordinate the efficient delivery of the mandates of different committees.

The National Planning minister also blamed the retrogressive movement of Nigeria's development on lack of planning. He said the Vision 2010 which was put together by the government of the late General Sani Abacha would have put Nigeria on an irreversible path of development if it had been implemented by successive governments.

"I believe if we have more Nigerians to think positive about their country, not only that but to collectively envision how we think our problems will be solved. Most of our problems in this country stem from lack of proper planning. We just wake up from one morning to another, confronting problems that we should have been able to solve many years ago."

Usman also said, "I wouldn't agree that the vision 2010 died a natural death. It died an unnatural death. It was killed. This is the point. There must be continuity. As a minister of national planning, I am not saying it is everything that I met that should be done away with. Instead, I am trying to build on the works that I met. So, if we can have consistency like this, it will do us a lot of good. But if future government comes and abandons the vision, then that will be a continuation of inconsistency in leadership we are having in this country."

The Business Support Group (BSG), which is one of the key working groups of the process, is slated to be inaugurated by President Umaru Yar-adua at the State House on Monday. It is to be chaired by chairman of First Bank of Nigeria Alhaji Umar Mutallab. Its mandate is to source for funds from the private sector to compliment the efforts of the government towards the actualisation of the V-2020.