Nigerian President Sets Priorities for His Administration

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has set the priorities of his administration to include reducing corruption, increasing power supply and sweeping electoral reform.

The new agenda effectively drops the seven point agenda of his predecessor -- the late Umaru Yar'Adua.Observers see the announcement as yet another sign of the Nigerian leader consolidating his power.

Emma Ezeazu is General Secretary of the pro-democracy group – The Alliance for Credible Elections.He says President Jonathan’s agenda needs a slight modification.

“I think it is very good that he has scaled the whole seven pints agenda to three.I have said that he did not have enough time and he has to scale down his priorities, but I think for me election reform should be number one priority,” he says.

He faults President Jonathan’s position that he does not have enough time to carry out a comprehensive overhaul of key government institutions to produce results without contesting next year’s elections.

“ He has a right to run , we will defend his right to run, but we are saying at this particular   time in our history  there are fundamental problems to be solved, to make the perfect way for  major steps to be taken in the development of our country. We have a feeling that if he runs at this particular time, the prospects of recovering the credibility of our electoral system will be doomed,” he says.

Ezeazu says the administration should concentrate on delivering credible elections to the country as a tool for fighting corruption.

“Electoral reform should come first because we already have a monstrous situation   in the Nigerian context in which   almost 99 percent of those in power do not have the mandate to rule and do not have the complete mandate to do the anti-corruption work,” Ezeazu notes.