Nigeria’s Information and Culture Minister, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has said his only regret as a minister is that some Nigerians have failed to recognize the fact that the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration is doing so much with little resources.
While speaking at a Special Forum of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja, Mr Mohammed said no government in the history of Nigeria had implemented programmes alleviating poverty among women and vulnerable groups as well as created jobs for the youths like Buhari administration has done, despite limited resources.
The minister said he was worried because Nigerians keep celebrating developments rather than appreciate Buhari for his effort.
Mohammed said:
“My regret in this government is that Nigerians have failed to appreciate that the government is doing much more with much less.
“2010 to 2014 crude oil was selling from 100 dollars to 140 dollars per barrel, but the highest we have sold since we came in is 60 dollars.
“Sometimes at the peak of COVID-19 pandemic, we were even paying for storage because nobody wanted to take our crude.
“With the drop in revenues and security challenges this government has not retrenched one person but put in place programmes to cushion the effects of the pandemic,’’
He also noted that special intervention programs like the school feeding program, the conditional cash transfer and the N75bn Youth Investment Fund to provide jobs for graduates were underappreciated by Nigerians.
Mohammed said:
“This includes the payroll support for businesses in health, education, hospitality and food production sectors targeting 500,000 beneficiaries.
” The One-Off payment to support self-employed individuals like mechanics and drivers, hairdressers, Keke Napep and Okada riders, plumbers and electricians with a one-time payment of N30,000 for 333,000 beneficiaries.
“Formalisation support where Federal Government will register 250,000 new businesses with the Corporate Affairs Commission at no cost to MSMEs.”
“General MSMEs grants which provides N50,000 to an additional 100,000 MSMEs as well as Guaranteed Offtake Stimulus Scheme which aimed to stimulate direct local production in the 36 states and the FCT,’’ Mohammed added.
The Minister said other initiatives targeted at the youths included N-POWER which had engaged 500,000 beneficiaries with 400,000 added from December.
Mohammed further said that the N-TECH and N-AGRO initiatives were beneficial to over 10,000 youths while over two million farmers and traders were empowered under the FARMERMONI, TRADERMONI and MARKETMONI.
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