Highlights Of President Jonathan's Meeting With Obama

President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan made history yesterday as he became the first Nigerian Leader to ring the closing bell at the Newyork Stock Exchange (NYSE). Recall that in 2009, Late President Yar Adua was the first Nigerian Leader to Ring the Opening bell on the floor of the Nigeria Stock Exchange. He Took to his Facebook Page and posted this after ringing the closing bell…..

Today, I had the honour of ringing the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange after I had heralded to global captains of industry Nigeria’s efforts in recent times that has made our nation a prime destination for foreign investment and one that ensures some of the highest Return on Investments (RoI) in the world. This is just the beginning of greater things to come for our country and our continent. The foundation of planning which we laid at the inception of our administration is being strengthened for greater service delivery for our people. My attention has just been drawn to some modest but positive steps in the education sector. In 2010, the pass rates for our National Examinations Council (NECO) Senior School Certificate Examinations was 15.84%. To address the abysmal failure and general decay in education we convened an emergency education summit in 2010 to deliberate on why we had fallen so far back and how best can we move up? We took the report from that conference and began implementing some of the recommendations. The education sector had the highest sectoral allocation in the budget the following year and has remained among the topmost in allocation since then. On Friday the 20th of September 2013, the results of our efforts began to manifest. This year, 69.57% of Nigerian students passed the 2013 Senior School Certificate Examinations. We cannot relent. While we continue to negotiate with ASUU so that never again will strikes be an impediment to the realization of our children's educational aspiration, it is important that we keep our eyes on the ball: a holistic turn around in our education. As we make progress in every sector of our economy: Transportation, Aviation, Agriculture, Power, Finance, Energy Security and all others it is not celebration time until all our citizens can feel the progress in our communities and our constituencies. We must pay greater attention to education. As I said on this page on April 10, 2012 when I commissioned the first of 400 Almajirinci Model Schools in Gagi, Sokoto state “a nation does not become wealthy by what it has under the ground rather the wealth of nations are today measured by what is between the ears of her citizens”. To the world I say, we have the most industrious humans on earth and we are ready for business. To fellow Nigerians, our collective work for change is not done. Lets us not be discouraged by the attempt to drag us into partisan politics when the urgent issue of the moment is governance. GEJ”

President Jonathan is in Newyork for the United Nations summit.

President Jonathan also met with President Obama. The meeting was held in the LyndonnB Johnson suite in Waldorf-Asstoria. “For you to fix the world, you must fix Africa. For you to fix Africa, you must fix Nigeria”. That’s the message our dear President Jonathan greeted President Obama with as they start their bilateral meeting. Obama condemned the attack on Kenyan mall. President Jonathan will be addressing the U.N today.