To facilitate Nigeria’s social and economic development in the year 2020 and in the new decade, Northern and Southern leaders have charged President Muhammadu Buhari to pursue with much vigour more reforms in the security and power sectors.

They also asked him to make job creation and massive industrialisation the corner stone of his second term in office beginning from this New Year.

In their agenda setting for the president, the leaders further asked Buhari to crush the insurgents without allowing them to buy time again. They added that the same treatment should be extended to kidnappers and other criminals in the country.

The leaders under the umbrella of Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) and Pan-Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) said that the insurgents and other criminals should not be allowed any room to carry out their nefarious activities or regroup throughout this year.

In an interview with LEADERSHIP Weekend, ACF’s national secretary, Mr Anthony Sani, said that in 2020, the government should sustain the tempo in the fight against insecurity posed by insurgence, banditry, kidnappers, cattle rustling, armed robbery, clashes between herdsmen and farmers as well as cultism and militant activities.

Sani said: “The fight so far has brought some improvement in the security situation and the attendant improvement in peaceful coexistence that is sine qua non for socioeconomic development. I say this because it is possible that the criminals can give a feint of being subdued by defeat and buy time in order to regroup for more ferocious attacks.”

The ACF scribe said that since the budget had been passed, it is possible that there will be improvement in infrastructure development that can pave the way for hype in macro and micro economic activities leading to reduction in poverty through some level of employment at a time the minimum wage had reduced the provision for capital to less than the 30 per cent.

“We hope the loan of $29.9 billion will be put to proper use in those specific projects for which the loan is sought,” Sani said, as he stressed the importance of the loan request by the president before the national assembly.

“And because there is paucity of resources needed to revamp the economy by way of diversification through sacrifices, the government and the public officers should ensure even distribution of the needed sacrifices. One way they can do this is to scale down the jumbo pay in order to reduce the unbridled inequality in the polity,” Sani said.

He continued: “I believe if the closure of borders is properly managed to reduce the influx of illegal immigrants and smuggling, it can bring about reduction of insecurity and improvement in productivity that comes with local production of goods and improve employment.

“Nigerians should support government’s efforts by making do with what we produce and let go part of today’s comfort for the good of tomorrow.

“This is necessary and good for the economy. Diversification cannot be a day’s job but can come through consciously directed efforts to make desires possible and then actual. No surgical intervention is without pains. I think there is hope for the economy, especially if the government can reside the politics, reengineer sense of justice, make mercy smarter and make hope more strategic for the youths,” Sani added.

Also, the PANDEF and a good governance advocacy group, the Unity House Foundation (UHF) called on the federal government to implement Vision 2020 and other policies central to the development of the country.

Speaking in Port Harcourt on their expectations from Nigerians and the government this year, the Nnational publicity Secretary of PANDEF, High Chief Anabs Sara-Igbe, urged the industrialisation of the country.

Sara-Igbe said: “This is a new decade and the year 2020 that we have been expecting has come. So, Nigerians want to see all the promises made to us in the name of year 2020.

“We want the federal government to implement all the programmes for the year 2020 that they have been planning. There should be constant electricity supply for all; there should be adequate security of life and property.

“They should create employment and industrialise the country. Let us benefit from industrialisation. These and many more are what Nigerians expect from the federal government in 2020.”

The PANDEF spokesman said that although the federal government has fared well in the area of security, there is still room for improvement.

He said: “The federal government has been trying in terms of security but they need to improve on it. They need to reduce terrorism in the North.”

In the same vein, the chairman, Board of Trustees of UHF, Kingsley Wenenda Wali, urged Nigerians to be optimistic about the country, saying Nigeria has a future that the entire black race will be proud of.

Wali said: “First, I need to tell Nigerians a Happy and Prosperous New Year. That is what I wish Nigerians in addition to asking them to be more optimistic about their country and faithful to her.

“That means that they should be loyal to their country over and above any other thing. I do believe that this country has a future; a future that Nigerians, Africans and blacks all over the world should be proud of. It is just a matter of time.

“I believe that this country is making progress in the key areas that matter in the affairs of a nation. Tough as it may be right now, but as they say, ‘nothing good comes very easy’.

“For me, the best advice that I can give to the federal government because I am not in a position to know to a lot of the key things the government is doing, we can only speculate. But, the federal government should learn how to communicate better with the Nigerian people,” he said. (Leadership)

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