By Ismail Auwal
Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has said that he regrets the unappreciative attitude of Nigerians for their failure to acknowledge the successes recorded by the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Mohammed stated this at a Special Forum of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Tuesday.
The Minister also said that there was no government that has implemented poverty alleviating programmes among women and vulnerable groups, as well as created jobs for the youths, as the Buhari administration had done, despite meager resources.
Mohammed added that his only regret as a minister was that some Nigerians have failed to appreciate the efforts of the government but keep celebrating negative developments.
He said Nigerians were not giving credit to various intervention programmes of the government such as the School Feeding Programme, with no fewer than 12.8 million pupils reportedly getting one free meal a day to develop their mental capacity.
“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 to $140 per barrel, but the highest we have sold since we came in is $60,” he said.
“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.”
