Lai Mohammed in Kano, says ‘results showing Buhari’s administration is working’

Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has said
the Muhammadu Buhari Administration is working and the results are showing in
the various sectors of the economy.
The Minister stated this at the 4th Annual Conference of the
Association of Communication Scholars and Professionals of Nigeria
(ACSPN) in Kano on Wednesday, nothing that pulling Nigeria out of
recession was not by accident.
“Taking Nigeria out of recession did not happen by accident. It is the
culmination of months of hardwork by the Administration and fidelity
to its well-articulated economic policies, especially the Strategic
Implementation Economic Recovery (2016) and the Growth Plan (ERGP)
that was launched on 5th April, 2017,” he said.
Mohammed listed some of the ”incrementally-positive steps”
that got Nigeria out of recession as including the reversal of the
consistent slowdown since 2014 to a level where the GDP finally grew
by 0.55% in the second quarter of 2017
”This positive growth is attributable to both the oil and non-oil
sectors of the economy. Growth in the oil sector, which has been
negative since Q4 2015, was positive in Q2 2017. It rose by 1.64% as
compared to -15.60 in Q1 2017, an increase of up to 17 percentage
points.
”The non-oil sector grew by 0.45% in Q2 2017, a second successive
quarterly growth after growing 0.72% in Q1 2017. In particular,
improvement in the non-oil sector was driven principally by strong
growth in agriculture and solid minerals
sector, and reversal in the previous contraction of the manufacturing
and construction sector. This shows that the government’s economic
diversification programme is working,” he said.
The Minister listed other positive developments as a fall in the
inflation rate from 18% to 16% as of July 2017; the rise in
exports, coupled with a decrease in imports, which brought the
country’s trade balance to ₦719.4 billion, up from ₦671.3 billion;
increase in capital inflow that brought the total value of capital
imported into Nigeria in the second quarter of 2017 to $1,792.3
million, representing a growth of 95.02 percent; increase in foreign
reserves to a 30-month high of $31.8 billion in July 2017; and
appreciation in exchange rate from N520/$ as at 20 February 2017 to
N362/$ as at 17th August 2017.
He also listed some of the various impactful programmes of the
Administration as including the National Home Grown School Feeding
Programme, which today feeds 3,065,000 pupils in 14 states of the Federation
pupils and has employed 36,000 Cooks across the country; the Conditional
Cash Transfer that has seen about over 30,000 households benefit from the
N5,000 monthly stipend; the Government Enterprise and Empowerment
Programme under which about 120,000 people have benefited from the
cooperative loans; and the N-power that has employed 200,000 people.
He said the high food prices are being addressed with appropriate
monetary, fiscal and trade policies, as stated in the ERGP.
Mohammed reiterated his earlier statement that the purveyors of
hate speech, fake news and disinformation are working hard to
obliterate the glaring achievements of the Administration.
”To naysayers, these positive developments do not constitute news.
That’s why they make up their own fake news, and engage in
disinformation and hate speech. They believe that by seeking to
overwhelm the polity with fake news, disinformation and hate speech,
they can easily obliterate the glaring achievements of the Buhari
Administration. We must not allow them to dominate the media space,”
he said