Garba Shehu: Anyone complaining of hunger should go and work

Garba Shehu, senior special assistant to the president on media and publicity, has asked those complaining of hunger to “go and work”.

In an interview with Ben TV, Shehu said the current administration has invested in people and also infrastructure.

“Everyone complaining of hunger should go and work. And you know that this is the only government that has introduced social investment schemes, we pay out now for the poorest of the poor, the least they will get is N5, 000 and a lot of these jobs that are been created are from loans with little or no interest from the central bank, Bank of industry, Banks of Agriculture, Development Bank  and the rest,” he said.

“So, there is a lot going for people who really want to go out there to work especially in agriculture.”

Shehu said since President Muhammadu Buhari took office in 2015, he has devoted not less than 30 percent of the country’s annual appropriation to infrastructure.

The spokesman said the foundation for the country’s growth cannot be laid without proper infrastructure in place.

“The records are there for everyone to see that no government, no past administration in Nigeria has invested as much as we have done or let me say like we are currently doing in infrastructure development,” he said.

“From day one when he took power, the president gave a target of not less than 30 percent of annual appropriation devoted to infrastructure development. Without infrastructure, we can not lay the foundation for growth.

“When this administration came to power, between 95 and 96 percent of public expenditure was going into overhead cost leaving only about 5 or 6 percent for infrastructure.

“The allocation of 30 percent under this administration has led to tremendous improvement in the provision of infrastructure so far in the country. Now there is a lot of work going on, building new rail lines and the rehabilitation of the old rail system networks, roads are been done all across the country, you only need to drive around to see for yourself.”

He said it is unfair to say that the president is shielding herdsman carrying out attacks on communities across the country.

“It is very unfair and uncharitable to say that he will shield anybody, and In any case, the president controls only one layer of authority, what are the governors doing, is the social media also saying that the governors are protecting the herdsmen from the law, are they saying the local government are also protecting them?” he asked.

“You see it has to take everyone at various levels of authority to shield somebody from the law in those circumstances, and the president himself, his passion is for the country, this is a president whose passion is not even for the office, even when everyone is asking him to go for a second term he is keeping quiet because his focus remains the nation and the problem of the country.”