Former Prime Minister of Tunisia, Mr. Mehdi Jomaa, has underscored the importance of Africa harnessing her rich resources, especially the maritime resources, noting that the sector holds the ace as the locomotive propelling growth and development of nations.
Speaking at the sideline of the just concluded summit on harnessing the Blue Economy potentials in the Niger Delta region, held at the Four Points By Sheraton Hotel, Ikot Ekpene local government area of Akwa Ibom State, Jomaa, stressed the need for government to pay greater attention to the maritime sector for socio- economic turn – around of the country.
For this to succeed and place Nigeria as a global player, the former Tunisian Prime Minister, pointed out that insufficient power output, and other supporting infrastructure were grossly inadequate for a population of about 240 million.
He recalled that Tunisia with the population of between 11 and 12 million was at similar economic crossroads about some decade ago, but was able to navigate her way out through deep thinking, vision and effective implementation of key development policies.
Jomaa, therefore, advised Nigeria to explore advantages of large population with young minds and large market -to work with the elites and policy makers with deep passion and patriotic spirit to reorder Nigeria along the path of sustainable development in order to address the demands of the large population.
He noted that Nigeria as the largest country and largest population, has a duty to address more importantly the energy challenge, if it must surmount part of the challenges, assuring that Tunisia was ready to cooperate in developing the blue economy sector, adding that he was in Nigeria’s Niger Delta for the first time to contribute on how maritime subsector in the country could be developed to optimum capacity.
He said: “I was invited by this committee to be part of starting this initiative which is to invest in the blue economy and it’s an honour for me to be with you because I am in the largest and heaviest country in Africa.
“Therefore, It should be, it has to be, and it has to work to be the locomotive for the development of our continent.
So I’m happy to be here, honored to be here, and I would like to be a contributor to this initiative. I believe, and I do believe in the capacity of we Africans to build a nice future.
“We are at this point where there is a reconfiguration of the world, and it’s time to wake up, to stand up, and to work for the future, to prepare the future. and it’s one of the areas where we can hope for the best growth in the continent, and the best growth for the people,” he noted.
The ex – PM, however noted that bottlenecks exist in the process and stressed the need to borrow a leave from successful countries, stressing: “Let’s have a look at the successful countries and what they did.”
Jomaa said: “First is to get a real vision, what we want to do, the direction we have to go, and not to be focused only, but checking the daily troubles, which is important for the daily life of people, because without direction, whatever you do, even though you have the best boat in the world, you can miss the direction.
“So it’s important to have the vision, but it’s not enough. Without vision, we cannot do anything. It’s not enough to have the team, the leadership but what we call the great leadership with the right organisation and then to develop the capacity for implementation.
“We can miss our target if you don’t have a vision, but when you have a vision you have to dedicate the right team for the implementation. We have all the ingredients here; and the young people;
you have a large market, you have a good elite, and you are aware of the situation and what to do; so that’s the successful case.”
