Government’s failure to fulfill its promise to provide Nigerians with 6,000 megawatts of electricity by December 2009, the death and burial of former first lady Maryam Babangida and the recurring story of the Nigerian who tried to bomb an American plane continued to dominate from pages this past week.
At the inception of the Yar’Adua administration, government promised to drastically improve access to electricity by the end of 2009, saying this was because power was a basic necessity in a technologically-driven world. But this was not to be.
“6,000MW: Jonathan Admits Failure”, was the screaming headline of THIS DAY newspaper on Friday which reported “From the Federal Government has come an unusual new year message to Nigerians: — an admission of its failure to match words with a ction with regard to attaining 6,000 megawatts of power by the end of 2009.
According to the paper, Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan was honest about the go vernment’s less-than-expected performance in the area of improved electricity while delivering his new year message.
‘While I am happy today to report that we have achieved some substantial measure of success, I regret to mention that for a number of unforeseen and unavoidable reasons, this target could not be met. Millions of Nigerian are therefore still without power. For this, I render on behalf of government very sincere regrets,’ said Jonathan.
He, however, said that as the nation enters 2010, resources would be mobilized to address the challenge of power supply through effective transmission and distribution.
The Sun newspaper Friday headlined its story “6000 megawatts: We’re sorry, Jonathan begs Nigerians”, and reported that the Federal Government has apologized to Nigerians over its inability to actualize its dream of 6000 megawatts of electricity in 2009.
It quoted the Vice President Goodluck Jonathan as saying that it was unfortunate that most Nigerians across the country were still in darkness.
And the privately-owned Vanguard on Friday came out with the headline “FG failed in 2009 ΓΆ” Labour”, saying that Vice President Jonathan Thursday took stock of governance in 2009 and apologized to Nigerians on the failure of government to fulfill some of its promises, especially the aborted target of 6,000 megawatts of e lectricity by the end of last year.
This coincided with the organized labour’s view that the nation’s political leaders in the executive and legislative arms of government failed to put the interest and welfare of Nigerians above their narrow interests as politicians.
Dr. Jonathan, in his New Year message, reviewed the activities of government in 2009 and concluded that though the government recorded appreciable achievements, it encountered some challenges while the Nigerian Labour Congress, arguing that the past year was very traumatic and unstable for Nigerians, especially workers.
Also in all the newspapers were stories on the death and burial of former first lady Maryam Banged and the young Nigerian who attempted to bomb an American plane.
The papers reported that Maryam Babangida, wife of Nigeria’s ex-military president, Ibrahim Babangida, had been buried at the family Hilltop residence in Minna, North Central Niger State. Maryam died last Sunday in the US where she had been receiving treatment for ova rian cancer.
The papers reported extensively from the press statement by the Minister of Information and Communications, Dora Akunyili, saying that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian accused of trying to blow up a US airline on Christmas Day started his journey in Ghana.
‘Further investigations by the Nigerian Government have revealed that Abdulmuttalab spent less than 30 minutes in Nigerian airport before boarding the flight to Amsterdam. He arrived Nigeria 24 December from Ghana via Virgin Nigeria. His passport was scanned on entry into Nigeria at 20.08 and was scanned at check-in for departure to Amsterdam at 20.35.
As a consequence of this development, ‘Nigeria has ordered 3-D body scanner, which is capable of revealing everything on the body. 3-D body scanner, the latest technology is currently not available in most airports both in developed and developing countries,’ Akunyili said.
But Ghanaian authorities disputed the statement by the minister, and said Umar Abdulmutallab’s stop-over in Nigeria was for at least three hours.
However, the Sun quoted Vice President Jonathan as saying although the bombing was averted it had done great damage to the Nigerian national psyche.