Council on reform, transformation underway - Obasanjo
President Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday in Abuja said that he will soon unfold a new National Council for Reforms and Transformation, to make the ongoing programmes irreversible.
He gave the indication at the opening of a three-day retreat for PDP candidates for state and national elections.
He explained:“Any living and dynamic human organisation must constantly reform and transform if it is not to remain static and retrogress.
“Our new agenda setting, issues driven party is taking politics beyond mere contests for political office to a level where we are able to deepen and broaden the content of our democratic values.”
He said that such values would enable candidates to be imbued with an “ingrained social responsibility and abiding faith in the growth, peace, security, stability and prosperity of our dear nation.”
“We are resolved to ensure that all the candidates, who will be flying our flag in the forthcoming general elections know and thoroughly familiarise themselves with the spirit and letter of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution,” he said.
He said that such candidates must also be abreast with the party’s expanded and redefined manifesto, the PDP code of conduct and best practices.
“We also expect our candidates to be sufficiently knowledgeable about the peculiarities of the Nigerian situation, the West African situation, the African situation and the 21st century world,” he added.
In setting our agenda for the sustained regeneration of our nation, he noted, we must look at short, medium and long term issues, objectives and targets
Obasanjo, who said there were visible evidence of the success of the programmes, told the candidates, however, that “these reforms are still at the realm of an uncompleted job and have yet to attain the stature of desired irreversibility.”
“We need to build a critical mass of believers in the new Nigeria, believers in the reform process, believers in democratic good governance, believers in the fight against corruption, and believers in transparency, due process and accountability,” he said.
The former Prime Minister of Jamaica, Mr P.J. Patterson, who spoke on what the world expected from Nigeria, said that the international community expected free and fair elections in accordance with the country’s constitution.
Other expectations, he said, included the reform of the Nigerian constitution to entrench democracy and make dictatorship a thing of the past.
The harnessing of the country’s human and material resources toward development in the areas of housing water, roads and environment formed part of the expectations he said.
He added that the world would want Nigeria to be a power that could contribute to such global issues as trade, resolution of conflicts, partnership for development and the fight against terrorism.
Patterson, who traced the extreme poverty of Africa to its history of slave trade and colonialism, urged political parties in Nigeria to dedicate themselves to the eradication of poverty, HIV/AIDS, violence and environmental degradation.
Describing democracy as the best form of government in spite of its imperfections, the former Jamaican leaders called for increased freedom of information and popular participation as part of efforts to encourage civil rule in Africa.
He praised Obasanjo for being the first Nigerian head of state, who handed over to an elected civilian President, and the person who was willing to vacate office after serving the two terms allowed by the country’s constitution.