President Goodluck Jonathan - The NYSC is here to STAY

Posted Via his Facebook Page today, the president said


As has become my habit, I took time to read your comments on this page and noticed that a number of you called for the proscription of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). The deaths of members of the NYSC during the post-election violence is condemnable and we need to prevent a reoccurrence, but in doing that, there should be an awareness that the NYSC is a force for good and we must never sacrifice what is good for what is convenient for the moment. Leadership is about taking in the big picture.
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The NYSC scheme was birthed by the Gowon administration as a means of enhancing Nigeria’s unity by making Nigeria’s youths spend a period of sacrificial living in parts of the country outside the immediate location in which they were raised. And this scheme is to a large extent achieving its purpose.

We need more of anything that will build unity in Nigeria and it is not possible to build unity without unifying vehicles. The NYSC like the Nigerian Army, Navy, Air force and Police are unifying vehicles.

These vehicles serve their purpose because they endure trying times seeing as the core value behind their creation is sacrifice. And just as we recognize fallen heroes of the Armed Forces on Remembrance Day, we will never forget our fallen heroic Youth Corpers.  The five million Naira compensation to their families will not bring them back but it is a gesture to show that we mourn with them. We will do all that is humanly possible to bring justice to their killers. However, in doing this, we must retain the scheme and improve on it so that it becomes a living memorial to the sacrifice of Nigeria’s youth to the growth, progress and unity of Nigeria.

Why I didn’t ask Jega to resign, by Jonathan

THERE is bad news for those pushing for Prof. Attahiru Jega’s resignation.

The President said yesterday that he was “in full support” of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) chairman, who came under attack for calling off last Saturday’s National Assembly elections.

The President spoke at a photo exhibition on his campaign tour at the Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja.

“The day I no longer support him, I will of course raise the process of removing him. You know that of course, if he is no longer performing well, I will communicate to the National Assembly to terminate his appointment. Until I do that, I am fully in his support and I know that he will do well,’’ the President said.

Jonathan said: “The country and the electoral body are totally committed to ensuring that they conduct credible elections’’.

He said INEC had the alternative of going ahead with the polls last week without the result sheets to enter the results at the collation centres, but it declined.

Said Dr. Jonathan: “What arrived late were the results sheets. They could not have been distributed that night to everybody. That would have meant taking the materials to the collation centres where they would have entered the results on plain sheets of paper. This is what we are against, that is what INEC is against.
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US Commends President Goodluck Jonathan

*Says he has consolidated grip on power

*Believes Yar’Adua’s men won’t engineer political come back

Acting President Goodluck Jonathan’s consolidation of his grip on power is drawing applause from the United States of America which says his efforts are easing a political crisis that once fanned fears of instability in the country.

Assistant Secretary of State Johnnie Carson said Washington was encouraged that Jonathan was moving on electoral reforms, anti-corruption efforts and peace outreach in the restive Niger Delta, the centre of Nigeria’s largest energy industry.

“I think he’s done a very good job of consolidating his authority and reassuring all segments of the community,” Carson, the Obama administration’s top diplomat for Africa, told Reuters in an interview.

Jonathan assumed power in early February to try to end government paralysis in the absence of President Umaru Yar’Adua, who had been in Saudi Arabia receiving treatment for a heart condition for more than two months.

Yar’Adua subsequently returned but remains too sick to govern and is essentially incommunicado – a situation that led U.S. officials to express concern over a potential power struggle among different leadership factions.

Carson said those fears had receded as Jonathan cemented his authority, including taking steps to name a new Cabinet, and that it was unlikely those who back Yar’Adua would try to engineer a political comeback.

“We don’t know whether he will come back. But I think the country is in fact moving on,” Carson said. “We believe those in power in senior positions have clearly opted to support a stable democracy during this period of uncertainty.”

U.S. officials have urged Jonathan to speed preparations for elections due in 2011, saying a repeat of the vote-rigging and intimidation that marred the 2007 vote that brought Yar’Adua to power would be disastrous.

Nigeria’s ruling party has said it wants the next president to be a northerner, in line with a principle that power rotates around the country, effectively ruling Jonathan out of another term.

Carson said the United States supported the rotation principle as a guarantor of stability in Nigeria.
“We hope that the political balance which has given Nigeria its political stability will prevail,” he said
Source: Vanguardngr.com