Lai Mohammed, minister of information and culture, says the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari is bringing about “unprecedented” transformation to Nigeria.
He said the innovative measures of the government are yielding positive results in various sectors including power generation, education and infrastructure.
Mohammed said this while delivering a keynote address at the 2018 ‘Africa together conference’ at the University of Cambridge in the UK on Saturday, according to Segun Adeyemi, his spokesman.
He said by focusing on education and skills acquisition, the current administration is investing in citizens and creating opportunities for the country’s teeming youth population.
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”In Nigeria, school enrolment is a challenge we face. And one of the main culprits is malnutrition. Government has stepped in: 8.2 million are being fed daily free meals in 45,000 schools,” he said, adding that this has increased school enrollment across the country.
The minister said shortage of skills in the labour pool is being addressed through several measures, including the N-Power programme, access to loans for medium and small business.
He added: ‘“Much of our programme has honed-in on business reform. Nigeria has moved up 24 places on the World Bank Ranking of Ease of Doing Business index – putting it amongst the top 10 global reformers, along with Zambia, Malawi and Djibouti.”
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Mohammed also told the audience that the two most critical impediments against business — adequate transport connections and reliable power supply — are also being addressed by the federal government.
“For instance, Nigeria earmarks 30% of its annual national budgets for capital expenditure. That means 2.7 trillion Naira has gone towards our infrastructure in the last 2 years -unprecedented in our history,” he said.
“Power generation has climbed to 7000MW, from just over 2500MW, to which we hope to add another 2000MW by the end of the year.”
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