BY Fredrick Nwabufo
Lai Mohammed, minister of information and culture, says “corrupt elements are doing everything possible to obfuscate the good work of the present administration, as a response to the government’s determined fight against corruption”.
According to a statement by Segun Adeyemi, his media aide, on Monday, the minister said this while addressing the staff of the Nigerian embassy in Abu Dhabi on Sunday.
“As the government fights corruption, corruption is also fighting back, using even unsuspecting sources,” he said. “This is the biggest challenge facing the administration at the moment.”
However, he said that the administration was determined and focused in its efforts to root out corruption in the country.
Responding to a question on how the government can better ensure the flow of timely and accurate information to Nigerian missions abroad, Mohammed said the ministry would launch an information app on December 15 to provide real time information to Nigerians at home and in the Diaspora.
He also said the ministry was considering setting up a foreign service information system as part of plans to furnish the missions with much-needed information, especially for prospective investors and tourists.
The minister told the embassy staff that apart from using the traditional means of communicating with the people, the administration had resorted to holding town hall meetings in order to better inform Nigerians of the activities of government, as well as to get the necessary feedback on government’s programmes and policies.
He added that the town hall meetings, which have been held in five states and Abuja so far, would be held on a sectoral basis from next year, in order to provide more information to Nigerians on key sectors, including agriculture, infrastructural development and the economy.
Mohammed also announced that efforts were being made to revitalise the National Orientation Agency (NOA), which he said is the closest to the grassroots, with a view to strengthening to be able to communicate the programmes and policies of the administration to Nigerians.
“We are reinventing the NOA in a more professional manner. The challenge is to better equip the NOA staff with the latest communication facilities so that they can do their work more effectively,” he said.
The minister, who was in Abu Dhabi to attend the International Conference on the Safeguarding of Cultural Heritage in Conflict Areas, said the administration had acquitted itself creditably in fighting the insurgency in the north-east, tackling the incessant clashes between farmers and herders and taking concrete measures to end the militancy in the Niger Delta.
He said the government had already provided 200,000 of the 500,000 jobs it promised under the N-Power Volunteers programme, while at the same time embarking on an agricultural initiative that would see Nigeria become self sufficient in rice and wheat in the shortest time possible.
On the recession, Mohammed said: “We are spending our way out of this recession, we are investing massively in infrastructural development: roads, railways, power etc, and creating jobs in the process.”
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