The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai
Mohammed, has revealed how the Buhari-led administration took Nigeria out of
its first recession in 25 years.
He noted that pulling Nigeria out of recession was not by
accident, noting that the feat was achieved because of the current
administration’s hard work and dedication
The Minister stated this at the 4th Annual Conference of the
Association of Communication Scholars and Professionals of Nigeria (ACSPN) in
Kano on Wednesday.
“Taking Nigeria out of recession did not happen by accident.
It is the culmination of months of hard work 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.
Alhaji Mohammed listed some of the ”incrementally-positive
steps” that got Nigeria out of recession, as including the reversal of the
consistent slowdown since 20014 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.
Alhaji Mohammed reiterated his earlier statement that the
purveyors of hate speech, fake news and disinformation were 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
By Ameh Comrade Godwin
