Vote for Awami League to keep the country on right development track: Sajeeb Wazed

The Prime Minister’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) adviser, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, asked people to vote for the ruling party to keep the country on the right development track.

Awami League will keep working hard to keep the momentum going, said Joy.

He was addressing the closing ceremony of Joy Bangla Youth Award 2018 at the Sheikh Hasina National Youth Complex in Dhaka on Sunday.

The event was an initiative of Young Bangla, the youth platform of non-profit organization Centre for Research and Information (CRI).

Joy handed over awards to all 30 winners in 10 categories for their outstanding contributions to promote youth employability, education, sports and cultural activities, and to end violence against women.

Urging people, especially the youth, to vote for the ruling party, Joy, also the chairperson of CRI, said: “The choice is in your hands whether you want Bangladesh to become a developed nation or what it was like in the past.”

“Even 10 years ago, when we came up with the idea of a Digital Bangladesh, people used to mock us,” he recalled.

During the BNP regime, people would think that nothing can be done in the country but the nation is still successfully continuing its pace of development on its own efforts, he said.

“We did it all by ourselves. We did not hire a World Bank consultant to build a Digital Bangladesh,” he said.

Bangladesh is now designated as an IT and e-governance expert across the world, and it provides IT support to the Maldives, Bhutan, Philippines, and Somalia, Joy said.

“We have already signed a deal with Peru to help it become digitized,” he said.

Joy said Awami League has reached its present stage braving all kinds of conspiracies. Civil society members, the BNP and Jamaat have no strength to defeat the united Awami League, he added.

Congratulating the award recipients, Joy said: “I hope you will embody the confidence that we can help the country progress and we can do it.”

“There is no doubt that it would not have been possible for Bangladesh to reach this stage if the Awami League was not in power,” he said.

“Before the Awami League assumed office, we had a common perception that better things cannot happen in Bangladesh which is full of problems,” he said.

“We did not have trust, confidence, and self-respect in our own country back then.” Bangladesh has advanced a lot over the years, he said.

He suggested youths should remember the reasons and means for development.

Awami League has both patriotism and ideology, which are necessary to take a nation towards development. He termed Bangladesh an example of growth for the rest of the world.

He said the term “nationalism” in a name does not reflect itself since it has to be demonstrated through development activities. “And we have done that,” he added.

Joy said Bangladesh would become a developed nation by 2041, in the way it obtained middle-income status even before 2021.

Dhaka Tribune Publisher Kazi Anis Ahmed, Post, Telecommunication and ICT Minister Mustafa Jabbar, his deputy Zunaid Ahmed Palak, State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid, State Minister for Information Tarana Halim, State Minister for Foreign Affairs Shahriar Alam, and Radwan Mujib Siddiq Bobby, among others, attended the program.