Date: 2014-06-16

The President-General of the Orisun Igomina, a socio cultural association of the people of Kwara State, Chief Gbenga Awoyale, has commended President Goodluck Jonathan for his numerous achievements in all facets of human endeavour aimed at making life better for Nigerians despite the porous security challenges.

Chief Awoyale in a statement issued in Ilorin today noted that President Jonathan cannot be compared with any of his predecessors in the areas of real transformation of the nation's economy, transportation, agriculture, power and other critical sectors devoid of propaganda and mismanagement of public fund.

He emphatically stressed that in the agricultural sector, "It is an incontrovertible fact that Nigeria under President Jonathan has reduced its food imports by about 40 per cent and increased its local production of rice, cassava, sorghum, cotton and cocoa in percentages ranging from 25 to 56 in the last two years.

"For the first time since independence, the Nigerian agricultural sector is attracting unprecedented Foreign Direct Investment. Over the past two years, the sector has attracted $ 4 billion in private sector executed letters of commitment to invest in agricultural value chains, from food crops, to export crops, fisheries and livestock."

Chief Awoyale who is also a chieftain of the Peoples' Democratic Party, PDP, added that, "The number of private sector seed companies grew from 10 to 70 within one year. Over $7billion of investments from Nigerian businesses have been made to develop new fertilizer manufacturing plants, which will make Nigeria the largest producer and exporter of fertilizer in Africa. It is also noteworthy that agricultural lending as a share of total bank lending has risen from two per cent to six per cent in two years."

While commending President Jonathan’s giant strides in the power sector, the Igbomina Chieftain said:

"The major component of the reform which is the privatization of the generation and distribution power infrastructure was successfully accomplished in 2013 thus putting Nigeria on a sure path of steady power supply in a no distant future.

"The completion of this process and the 10 NIPP projects, Nigeria would for the first time in history move away from vertically integrated state-owned and very poorly managed electricity industry to a modern private sector-led fully regulated market with the right incentives capable of attracting accelerated new investments to kick start the re-industrialization of Nigeria."

He also said that the Jonathan administration brought about the recovery of the Nigerian stock exchange, which he said was made possible by a combination of sound fiscal and monetary policies as well as a transparent conduct of state affairs in a manner which has rekindled investors’ confidence in the Nigerian market.

"Those who always seek to use the security challenges in some parts of Northern Nigeria as the only barometer to measure President Jonathan's performance were not being fair to the President, considering the fact that the war on insurgency and terrorism had never been a quick fix anywhere in the world.

Chief Awoyale however advised opposition parties to have a re-think over the achievements of President Jonathan which has further stand him tall above his predecessors and desist from scoring unnecessary and undesirable points from the on-going insurgency bedevilling the nation.