The Minister of Information and Culture, Mr Lai Mohammed, has said that there is no cause for alarm as Nigeria is in safe and competent hands with President Muhammadu Buhari piloting the affairs of the country.
The Minister made this known on Saturday at a town hall meeting with the staff of the Nigerian Embassy in Madrid, Spain, and a cross section of Nigerians living in the European country on Saturday, a statement signed by the Special Adviser to the Minister of Information and Culture, Segun Adeyemi said.
He said contrary to the fake news being peddled on the Social Media, Nigeria is making steady progress, especially in revamping the economy, tackling insecurity and fighting corruption – the three cardinal programmes of the Buhari Administration.
“Don’t believe everything you read on the Social Media. Nigeria is neither at war nor in crisis.
“Contrary to what you may be reading on the Internet, the Buhari Administration is putting Nigeria on a solid footing, after the years that were eaten by the locust,” Mr Mohammed said.
The Minister accused naysayers of spending millions of Naira to distort the true situation of things in Nigeria and to make the Administration look bad.
He, however, stressed that the administration’s achievements should be evaluated against the backdrop of the tough challenges that it has faced since coming into office in 2015.
Lamenting some of the challenges, he said: “Unpaid pensions had run into billions of Naira in many states, contractors had abandoned sites across the country because they were being heavily owed, infrastructure was in poor state, power generation was 2,690 megawatts, billions were being paid as ‘fuel subsidies’ to fat cats, corruption was the order of the day, while 20 of the 27 local governments in Borno were under the firm control of Boko Haram”.
But all this according to him, is being reversed, and the results are now showing.
“Foreign reserves is now $42.8b, the highest level in four years, inflation has fallen for 12 consecutive months to 15.13%, 108 billion Naira has been saved from removal of maintenance fees payable to banks before Treasury Single Account (TSA), the nation is being saved 24.7 billion Naira monthly with the full implementation of the TSA and the elimination of ghost workers has saved the nation 120 billion Naira.
”With improved macro-economic conditions, capital inflow is on the upswing, reaching $1.8 billion in the second quarter of 2017, which is almost double the $908 million in the first quarter, Nigeria’s stock market is one of the best-performing in the world, delivering returns in excess of 40 percent, Nigeria jumped 24 places on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business ranking, and earned a place on the List of Top 10 Reformers in the world,” he said.
The Minister also listed some other achievements such as the Administration’s agricultural revolution which according to him, is moving Nigeria close to self-sufficiency in many staples, especially rice.
He also noted that the home-Grown School Feeding Programme has created jobs for 61,352 cooks, and is providing 6.4 million school children in 33,981 schools across 20 states with one meal a day.
Mr Mohammed, therefore, urged Nigerians, especially those in diaspora to download the FGN-iAPP in order to get authentic news about happenings in the country.
