OUR attention has been drawn to the Vanguard story of Thursday, April 25, 2012 entitled ‘Vision 20: 2020 target, not realisable – Minister’, which we view as a deliberate misrepresentation of the statement made earlier that day by the Minister of National Planning, Dr Shamsuddeen Usman, CON,  while briefing the leadership of the Peoples’ Democratic Party on the 2012 achievements of his ministry.

In the said story which was first published on Vanguard website on Wednesday, April 24 and was later picked up by few other newspapers the following day, apparently originating from this initial source because of their unmistakable similarities, your newspaper claimed that the Minister of National Planning declared that the Nigerian Vision 20:2020 was no longer realizable.

Shamsuddeen Usman

We insist that the claim was the direct opposite of the assertion made by Dr. Usman at the event, where he clearly made the point that “implementing the National Vision 20:2020, the National Implementation Plans and the Transformation Agenda, continues to remain our priority.”

The Minister was on record to have stated further that in “2012 NPC continued to drive institutional transformation for effective achievement of NV20:2020, First National Implementation Plan (1st NIP) and the Transformation Agenda, through evidence based planning and policy advice, policy-oriented research agenda, improved research and statistical management as well as review of techniques for computation of CPI, GDP, poverty and unemployment.”

Poverty and unemployment

It is true that when prodded further by a reporter who doubted the chances of realizing the Vision given the unrelenting pervasive global economic downturn, the Minister made the following assertion to underscore his point, which your reporter conveniently chose to copiously quote without recourse to Dr Usman’s earlier distinct statement.

In this wise, the Minister had said in response to the question: “Where were we in 2009 when we started the process?  We were number 44. By the end of 2011, we were number 39 and by the end of 2012 we were number 36. This is progress…What I am saying is that even if we are not number 20 by that time, if by 2020 we are number 25. I will be a proud man.

The reason is that we are consciously moving and  doing all the necessary things to move up there.” It is obvious that any reporter who conveniently dwelt on the above assertion while willfully ignoring the build-up argument and the main plank of the Minister’s presentation, was merely being unprofessional even at the risk of deceiving his readers.

Even then, there is no way the above statement which is an obvious narrative on the progress being made by the country towards achieving the NV20:2020 could support your contradicting headline that the Minister had abandoned the Vision, no matter how thin you wished to stretch logic and the so called reportorial latitude.

It is instructive that while your reporter chose to represent the Minister, many others who are guided by the ethics of the noble profession, had no problem delivering the truth to their audience. One of  such reports which was published in Leadership newspapers of the same day appropriately quoted the minister as stating that “the Federal Government was doing the necessary things to achieve the country’s vision” to be among the top 20 economies by the size of the nation’s Gross Domestic Products (GDP) by the year 2020.

The point which the Minister has consistently been making is that the Nigerian Vision 20:2020 which is driving this adminstration’s Transformation Agenda, could still be realized if the nation did all that was required as captured in the comprehensive Vision document. In the same vein, Dr. Usman had never held back from explaining that the NV20:2020 was not a done deal but a roadmap which clearly points to what needs to be done by way of diligent hardwork towards achieving the desired goal.

We wish to place on record that the Commission and the Minister, have continued to repose hope in the Vision, as a realistic long term growth and development roadmap for the country, in line with this Administration’s demonstrated  determination, disposition and capacity to do things differently, to bring about change and the needed economic growth and strategic development.

Comprehensive reforms

This determination is evident in the comprehensive reforms going on in different sectors towards infrastructural renewal, promoting sustainable development and the growth of the nation’s economy. Power and agriculture are for instance, two areas that are undergoing a total revolution.

While power is being radically privatized to ensure steady power supply and open the floodgates for massive opportunities in investment and entrepreneurship; agriculture is being transformed along the value chain, to achieve food security, boost exports and create mass employment.

As the co-ordinating arm and the pivot of the government’s economic planning, the National Planning Commission, NPC, has continued to play a major role towards the effective implementation of the Transformation Agenda and the Vision 20:2020.  It is common knowledge that under the leadership of Dr. Shamsuddeen Usman, National Planning Minister, the Commission had spearheaded Nigeria’s return to strategic development planning, after about three decades of abandonment.

The minister’s scorecard in this regard includes capacity building for MDAs, development of Monitoring and Evaluation framework for the Government, regular conduct of M&E assessment on the  performance of the Federal MDAs, development of ministerial scorecards in line with the Vision and Transformation Agenda as well as the co-ordination of Mr President’s performance agreement with the ministers.

Even as some chose to ignore the remarkable achievements of this administration, many analysts are impressed that Nigeria has continued to record economic progress over the years; a development that feeds into the country’s improving GDP ranking.

Massive infrastructure

We are not ashamed to admit that there are gaps requiring improvement, especially in massive infrastructure upgrade, but we will not shy away from highlighting the fact that the prevailing macroeconomic fundamentals look strong.

It is instructive that, while growth in the developed and many emerging markets (including the ones Nigeria seeks to overtake) has remained either static or continues to regress, Nigeria’s economy has maintained a robust growth trajectory, averaging seven per cent in the last three years. Recent data posted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) put Nigeria as one of the fastest growing economies in the world, after China and India, as a result of the impressive growth of the nation’s economy.

It is on record that Nigeria has remained the largest African recipient of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the last ten years just as it has continued to drive growth in the continent with significant inter-African investment. A recent report by Ernst & Young, a global accounting firm, put Nigeria ahead of other African countries while forecasting an average of $23 billion per year in FDI inflows into the country and not less than 95,000 new jobs, in a continent where the total annual FDI portfolio stands at $40.6 billion.

Inflation pressure

Added to this positive signal is the improvement in inflation pressure which is now stabilizing at a single digit, going by the recent CPI figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics. These are obviously sound indicators that are attracting positive international attention and receiving rave reviews globally, as pointers to better days ahead.

Furthermore, many international analysts and rating agencies, including Fitch, have continued to upgrade and positively revise the country’s business profile. What is currently lacking is the appreciation and buy-in of some critical segments of the society, including a section of the media.

In other emerging economies where similar programmes are succeeding, there exists manifest citizen’s enthusiasm towards owning the Vision, with people from all walks of life playing their roles towards its implementation. We wish to end this piece with a rhetorical question which the HM himself usually asks those who take delight in savaging the NV202020 to wit: Would they rather that the country continued to drift as before without a strategic long term plan?

•Ikechukwu Eze is Technical Adviser (Communication) to the Minister of National Planning Commission Abuja