The former Governor of Anambra State, Mr. Peter Obi has commended President Goodluck Jonathan on the trajectory of his Government, especially its Transformation Agenda that is taken manufacturing and Agriculture seriously.
Speaking to the press after the State of Africa Session at the just concluded World Bank 2014 Annual Spring Meeting at Washington, where the World Bank Managing Director, Sri Mulyani Indrawati submitted that within 2 decades of growth, Asian countries have been able to reduce poverty by 40%, while Africa reduced it by mere 8% over the same period, because African neglected manufacturing and Agriculture, Obi said it was about time Nigeria focused more on manufacturing and Agriculture.
“Looking at the Government of President Goodluck Jonathan, one will notice that his emphasis now, responding to global requirement, is meanly on encouraging the manufacturing sector and Agriculture, while not neglecting other sectors. We have started to see the result. Once this is continued, the growth in our economy will increasingly lead to job creation and invariably to the reduction in poverty level”, Obi said.
As a corollary to the foregoing, Obi also called for more attention to be paid to education. “When you look closely, you will find out that those Asian countries in question invested heavily in education and skill acquisition as well. For African countries to develop, they must build their human resources and engage in practical capacity building,” Obi said. He therefore called for the establishment of the Ministry of Basic Education arguing that Nigeria needed that now to lay proper educational foundation for the children of the State bearing in mind, according to him, that education is the most portent tool for competition in the world.
Justifying the call, Obi said: “ Education is demanding and challenging. It is one sector that is very active in terms of caring for the schools, the welfare of the pupils and students, curriculum development, admissions, labour matters, regulation and registration of schools, among others. It shall be better coordinated if the sector has two Ministries, where one is devoted to basic education, which is the terra firma on which subsequent grade of education and teaching are hinged, Obi concluded.