State Hillary Clinton's visit to Nigeria will strengthen the existing
bilateral relationship between the two countries.
Also the Country Director of Oxfam Nigeria, Dr Chidi Aniagolu-Okoye,
says Nigeria should use the opportunity of U.S. Secretary of State,
Hillary Clinton's visit to build a strategic relationship with the
U.S.
The Executive Director of the NGO, Mr Tosin Adeyanju, made the remark
in an interview in Abuja on Wednesday.
Adeyanju said that the visit was coming at the right time when Nigeria
was being confronted with security challenges.
"Terrorism in a global phenomenon, we need a global dimension to
tackle the menace, it will be good to partner with the U.S. in
fighting terrorism and corruption. "
He noted that Nigeria would learned a lot from the experience of
America's effort in fighting terrorism since the Sept. 11, 2001 attack
on the World Trade Centre.
The director urged the Federal Government to use this golden
opportunity to explore other ways to expand economic frontiers of the
country in collaboration with the U.S.
Mr Olayemi Success, Programme Officer of National Youth Council (NYC)
urged the Federal Government to develop a youth policy on mechanised
agriculture to reduce the level of unemployment.
Success said that the policy should be geared toward creating an
enabling environment for the teeming youths to showcase their talents
in agriculture and other spheres of human endeavour.
"Nigeria is blessed with human and material resource in agriculture as
well as solid minerals, youths could be engaged in the extraction of
these resources to create employment
He stressed the need for new orientation that would encourage the
youth to go back to the farm and harness the rich potentials in
farming.
According to Success, over the years government has been making
pronouncement about creating jobs for the youth.
"It is a good pronouncement if only it can be sincerely implemented to
the letter, "he added.
In a related development, the Progressives Action Congress, said the
proposed Hillary Clinton's visit to Nigeria would benefit the country
in many areas.
The National Chairman of the Party, Chief Charles Nwodo, told NAN that
it was a normal routine for diplomats to exchange visits to a friendly
nation.
He said Clinton had visited Nigeria for some times, it was expected
that this time around, the country would witness tremendous
development after her visit.
He urged her to see the visit as an opportunity to liaise with the
Federal Government on how to improve economic relations between the
two countries.
" We expect that her visit will bring a reasonable support for the
country in order to get out of its challenges.
" We believe she will come up with ideas that can assist the country
to overcome its problem of unemployment, corruption, poverty and
challenges confronting the nation,'' he said.
The chairman urged the Federal Government to create an enabling
environment that could serve as catalyst to job creation.
He advised the government to pay the monies owed to the local
contractors in order to stimulate them to create more jobs to support
government's efforts.
According to him, the Federal Government should not be the only tier
of government to engage in job creation, other tiers of government
should key in as well to enhance speedy development.
Also the Country Director of Oxfam Nigeria, Dr Chidi Aniagolu-Okoye,
says Nigeria should use the opportunity of U.S. Secretary of State,
Hillary Clinton's visit to build a strategic relationship with the
U.S.
Aniagolu-Okoye said that Nigeria could further work out enhanced
international trade relations with U.S. as a strategy for closer ties.
She said on Tuesday in Abuja that Nigeria should do away with its
current donor dependent status during Clinton's visit.
"America has a lot to offer, but this time around, it must not be
Nigeria coming cap in hand as it does all the time begging, instead it
must be a strategic relationship,'' she stressed.
Aniagolu-Okoye said that it was an established fact that Nigeria had a
long standing bilateral relations with America in so many areas.
However, Aniagolu-Okoye, said there was need to create an environment
of mutual trade relations and cooperation that would allow Nigerian
goods to gain easy access to America.
She said that this would go a long way to encouraging the Nigerian
private sector to improve on the quality of their goods in the
competitive international markets.
The country director said that the issue of security was becoming the
major global focus and Nigeria should see it as one of the areas of
its priority.
She said that the U.S. should give special attention to Nigeria's
security problem to guard against its spill over to America and
elsewhere.
"This has become so imperative because the world is getting smaller
and what affect one country will definitely affects the others.
"When the Al-Oaeda started its terrorism in the Middle-East, we never
thought this would happen to us in Nigeria,''she said.
Aniagolu-Okoye said that even though there was democratic government
in Nigeria, democracy had not taken its root in Nigeria, therefore,
the U.S. needed to focus on this.
"This has become essential because Nigeria has adopted the American
democratic system of government, therefore, America should assist
Nigeria to build its democratic institutions.''
The Country Director of Action Aid, Dr Hussain Abdul, noted that the
visit of Hillary Clinton was just another American diplomatic visit to
Nigeria.
He said that there was no doubt that the U.S. was more powerful,
influential and economically buoyant than Nigeria, naturally, there
must be a symbiotic relationship.
Abdul, therefore, warned that Nigeria must not present a dependency
position to the visiting Secretary of State.
"You depend on me and I depend on you, Nigeria has a lot to offer.
"Therefore, we should actually interface, and work out what Nigeria
can gain from America throughout the diplomatic relationship and what
America can gain from Nigerian," Abdul said. (NAN)
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