Hillary Clinton’s visit will strengthen Nigeria, U.S. bilateral relations – NGO

Abuja – The Conscience Nigeria, an NGO, says the U.S. Secretary of 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)