Goodluck Jonathan’s supporters catalogue his milestone achievements

President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has emerged the most dynamic, forward looking and best performing leader of Africa’s most populous country and biggest economy, legions of supporters maintained. And they have catalogued the game-changing feats of the Peoples Democratic Party’s candidate in the February 14, 2015 election.

From the economy to sports, agriculture to aviation, education to transportation, and practically all areas of human endeavor, they ruled Jonathan has having scored very high marks.

Born on November 20, 1957, in Otuoke, Bayelsa State, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Zoology, a Masters in Hydrobiology and Fisheries Biology and a Ph.D degree in Zoology from the University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State.  After working as an education inspector, lecturer and environmental protection officer, he entered politics in 1998 and was voted deputy governor of Bayelsa State, a position he held from 1999 till 2005 when he became the governor.

In 2007, he was picked as the running mate to Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua in the presidential election. The pair won the election, but President Yar’Adua died on May 5, 2010, paving the way for Jonathan to assume office as the new president. In 2011, he was elected the 14th Head of State and President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria by an overwhelming majority, winning 25 of Nigeria’s 36 states in an election adjudged by local and international observers as free, fair and credible.

He is married to Dame Patience and they are blessed with children.

Here are the highlights of the feats of the PDP presidential candidate:

• $510 BILLION – The rebased GDP of Nigeria, compared to $169bn in 2009. It is now Africa’s biggest economy.
• 4 TRILLION – Food import bill before Jonathan became president. It is now less than N700bn.
• $1 BILLION – Seed money for the newly established Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) to save for future generations of Nigerians, fund infrastructural spending and stabilize the economy.
• 23 TRILLION – Market value of stocks listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange as at December 31, 2013. It was N9.92 trillion in 2009.  All Share Index also moved from 25,000.000 points at the end of 2009 to 38,016.80 in 2013.
• 50,000 – Approximate number of ghost workers identified through the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS). Over N139 billion has been saved through the system.
• $4 BILLION – Investments attracted to the agricultural sector as a result of reform.
• 52 YEARS – Life expectancy at birth, an improvement on the 47 years before Jonathan.
• 5 MILLION – Number of insurance policy holders, compared to less than 500,000 in 2009.
• 1M METRIC TONNES – Increase in rice production in Northern states in 2013 as a result of the Agricultural Transformation Programme.
• 400 – Nigerian-owned crude oil transportation tankers, compared to less than 60 in 2009.
• 11,604 – Housing units provided by the Jonathan administration.
• $7 BILLION – Approximate value of foreign investment Nigeria attracted in 2013, making the country the No. 1 destination for foreign investment in Africa, after years of playing second fiddle.
• 75% – Improvement in the domestic gas supply as a result of the emergency gas supply programme.
• 2% – Rise in Nigeria’s exports in first quarter of 2014.
• 3% – Fall in Nigeria’s imports during the same period.
• 4 TRILLION – Increase in Nigeria’s trade surplus in first quarter of 2014.
• 130,000 BARRELS – Volume of crude oil production per day by the Nigerian Petroleum Development Corporation (NPDC), compared to zero before.
• 1% – Poverty rate in 2013, compared to 62.2% recorded under the Harmonised Nigeria Living Standard Statistics (HNLSS), according to the World Bank.
• 400% – Increase in Silo capacity under President Jonathan.
• 7 DAYS – How long it takes to clear trouble-free cargo, down from 39 days before. Number of agencies at the ports has been reduced from 13 to 7, streamlining bureaucratic and financial requirements for clearance and decongestion.
• 5 MILLION – Passengers carried by rail yearly compared to 1 million before Jonathan.
• 15 YEARS – How long Lagos-Kano, Port Harcourt-Maiduguri and Itakpe-Ajaokuta-Warri rail lines were moribund before President Jonathan rehabilitated them.
• 422M CUBIC METRES – Volume of water added to the country’s reservoir with the completion of dam projects in Akwa Ibom, Katsina, Enugu and Ondo States.
• 30 YEARS – The last time Nigeria’s airport infrastructure underwent any major make-over. All 22 federally-owned airports are being remodeled and renovated, resulting in improved passenger experience.
• N53 BILLION – Fresh investments in downstream oil sector, leading to additional 71 fuel depots in 2013.
• 6 MILLION – Number of Nigerian farmers on the e-wallet platform who now receive subsidized farm inputs without middlemen, thereby checkmating decades of corruption in the system. Over N50 billion saved so far from the fraud.
• 07 MILLION METRIC TONNES – Increase in farm output following the introduction of dry season farming through irrigation in 10 northern states –Kebbi, Zamfara, Sokoto, Katsina, Kano, Jigawa, Gombe, Niger, Kogi and Bauchi in 2013.
• $1.2 BILLION – Forex demand saved through local sufficiency in cement production.
• 433,650 – Number of lives saved under the “Saving One Million Lives” initiative from November 2012 to June 2013 through scaling up of six cost-effective interventions including Maternal & Child Health, nutrition, prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) of HIV, Provision of Essential commodities, Malaria control, routine immunization and eradication of polio.
• 7 MILLION METRIC TONNES – Paddy rice added to national production since 2011.
• $15 MILLION – Fund launched to support venture capital in the ICT sector, the first of its kind.
• 0 – New Type-3 wild polio virus recorded in Nigeria in the last one year –the first time ever.
• 0 – New guinea worm infection in Nigeria.
• 125 – Number of Almajiri boarding schools built by the Federal Government.
• 13 YEARS – How long ago Nigeria had not won a medal at the World Athletics Championship until Blessing Okagbare won two at Moscow 2013.
• 7,000 – Federal Government has sponsored 7,000 lecturers of federal and state tertiary institutions for post-graduate studies home and abroad to improve the quality of instruction since 2011. This is unprecedented.
• 6,720,000 – Number of tree seedlings raised in seven front line states: Adamawa, Bauchi, Jigawa, Yobe, Kebbi, Katsina, Kano, Yobe, Sokoto and Borno States to combat desertification.
• 19 YEARS – How long it took the Super Eagles to win another Africa Cup of Nations, having last won it in 1994.