Vice President Atiku Receives Award in U.S.

The Vice President of Nigeria, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar was Friday conferred with the 2002 Quintessence Award of the African Writers Endowment, Inc. in Trenton, the New Jersey state capital.

In a citation, Dr. Ugorji O. Ugorji of Sungai Corporation, sponsors of the Award, said Vice President Atiku had built bridges across religious, regional and ethnic divisions in Nigeria, which set the country in a new direction.

The Award ceremony, dubbed "A Celebration of African People in World History", was attended by both Americans and Nigerians, including Nigeria's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador (Chief) Arthur Mbanefo and the Consul General of Nigeria in New York, Hon. Taofiq Oseni.

Accepting the Award, Vice President Atiku Abubakar, while thanking Sungai Corporation for the honour done him, said that it symbolized recognition of the contribution of the new Nigerian Administration to the unity, stability, peace and progress of the country.

He said that the new democratic government had within three years of its existence reinvented the act of governance in Nigeria, consolidated the party structures and gave Nigeria a new direction.

The new administration, he said, had created an environment suitable for both indigenous and foreign investment in the Nigerian economy through the liberalization of the transportation, telecommunications and energy sectors.

He said that the government had also made significant improvement in its poverty eradication efforts, with particular focus on reducing the rate of unemployment and improving the general standards of living of Nigerians.

"We have, therefore, provided our country with a responsible, responsive, transparent and accountable leadership that has rekindled the hopes of our people and inspired confidence in our friends across the world:, the Vice President said.

He said the institutionalization of democracy required greater time span than the three years the Obasanjo Administration has had so far, during which it had learnt the inevitable lesson that democracy had its gains as well as its pains.

Vice President Atiku, however, said that in the Nigeria of the 21st century, there ought to be no place for ethnic irredentism, no place for religious intolerance and no platform for sectional political terrorism to advance the narrow interest of a few elites.

In his remarks, Professor Ibrahim Gambari, UN Under-Secretary General and Special Adviser on Africa, who chaired the event, commended the vigour and service of the Nigerian government of President Olusegun Obasanjo and Vice President Atiku Abubakar, whom he said had made every useful contributions to the development of Nigeria in the last three years, in the face of very daunting problems and formidable tasks.

Nigeria Information Service Centre
Consulate General of Nigeria
New York
July 29, 2002.