Says FG Committed To Completing Abandoned Project, Says Mohammed
L-R; Minister of Water Resources, Mr. Suleiman Adamu; Secretary to the Katsina State Government, Dr.Muhammad Inuwa, and the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, at the
Commissioning and Handing over of Sabke, Dutsi and Mashi Water Supply Schemes and Irrigation Projects in Dutsi, Katsina State, recently
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has slammed the country’s political opposition for downplaying the unprecedented achievements of the Buhari Administration, saying they are being deliberately and perpetually blind to the achievements.
The Minister made the assertion while inaugurating the 22-member newly-elected Governing Council of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR), under the chairmanship of Mallam Mukhtar Sirajo, in Abuja on Thursday.
He described the opposition as unserious, very disdainful of the truth, lacks ideas and believes that being in opposition means crying wolf where there is none and spewing out fake information at the speed of light!
”Where is the seriousness in an opposition party throwing out a spurious figure of N10 trillion as the amount of money that has been looted under the present administration? What is Nigeria’s annual national budget? How do you react to an opposition that is deliberately and perpetually blind to the monumental achievements of this Administration?” Alhaji Mohammed queried.
Listing some of the achievements of the Administration, the Minister said it had taken power generation from 2,690MW to 7,000MW, moved
Nigeria closer to self-sufficiency in rice than any Administrationmbefore it, increased the number of rice farmers from 5 million to an all-time high over 11 million and cut Nigeria’s rice import bill of $1.65 billion annually by 90 per cent.
”We are feeding 8.2 million pupils in 45,394 schools in 24 states, employing 87,261 cooks in the process; we are paying conditional cash transfer of N5,000 monthly to 297,973 poorest and most vulnerable households, never before done in Nigeria; we are building roads, rail and power, spending an unprecedented 2.7 trillion Naira on infrastructure alone in just two years; we have raised capital expenditure in the yearly national budget to an unprecedented 30 per cent on the average, our Social Investment Programmes have benefitted 9 million people.
”The school children who are being fed, the unemployed graduate who has now been employed under N-Power; the small business owner who has benefitted from the GEEP loans and the thousands of people who have been rescued from the clutches of Boko Haram know that these achievements are real,” he said.
Alhaji Mohammed said the economy is also back on the path of growth, after the recession of 2016-17, ”and we have the figures to support this assertion”.
The Minister said Nigeria moved up 24 places on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business rankings in 2017, and was listed among the 10 Most Improved Economies.
Alhaji Mohammed advised Public Relations practitioners never to be tired or discouraged from projecting the image of their establishments, even when some people decide to play the blind or the spoiler.
Mohammed said recently that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari is committed to completing projects that have been abandoned by past administrations.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, gave the assurance in Sabke, Katsina State, during the commissioning and handing over of three water supply schemes on Monday.
He said the three water supply projects, for Sabke, Dutsi and Mashi communities, started in 1998 but were abandoned by subsequent administrations.
Alhaji Mohammed said the commissioning of the three water projects marked the second time in a week that the Federal Ministry of Water Resources was inaugurating a completed water supply scheme, following the one in Edo State last Thursday.
”The commissioning of these projects fits into our ongoing agenda to showcase the achievements of the Buhari Administration, especially in the area of Infrastructure where the Administration has spent an unprecedented 2.7 trillion Naira in just two years,” he said.
The Minister recalled that the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture had recently kick-started a nationwide tour of Federal Government projects as part of efforts to showcase such projects.
He said the team had inspected ongoing work on the Lagos-Ibadan Standard Guage Rail, which is the first leg of the Lagos-Kano StandardGuage Rail Project, the Ecological Fund Project in Osun state and the Oyo- Ogbomoso road dualisation.
