You must earn the trust of Nigerians, Buhari tells ministers

President Muhammadu Buhari has charged members of his cabinet to work hard to earn the trust of Nigerians.

According to Kayode Fayemi, minister of mines and steel development, the president gave this charge at the federal executive council (FEC) meeting on Wednesday.

He also revealed that the council approved the procurement of 38 units of four-wheel Nissan Patrol worth N326.781m for the mines inspectorate division of the ministry of mines and steel.

Fayemi added that FEC also ratified the Lake Chad Basin charter, which will now be sent to the national assembly for enactment into law. ‎

“We will be one year in office in two days time so this is an anniversary federal executive council meeting. And it gave us the opportunity to really reflect on the progress we have made as a government, the challenges that we still have to tackle and the commitment we have to reiterate,”‎ Fayemi quoted him as saying.
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“The challenges are still enormous, we read what you write and we get ‎the feedback coming from the populace and we can’t afford to rest on our oars.

“We need to communicate to Nigerian what we are doing. We would find a way to speak individually about what we have been doing in a last one year. At the ministry level there will be some kind of commemoration but noting extra ordinary.”

On the procurement of vehicles, the minister said all the states would get their share.

“For a decade, no vehicle has been purchased for the mines and steel inspectorate division to oversee what is going on in our various states,” he said.

“Over the last two to  three months, all the approvals we have got for vehicles not just ours in mines and steel ministry but the ones for the prisons service, immigration and EFCC are procurements authorised to buy vehicles from local assembly plants so that we can begin to strengthen our automotive industry.

“The government remains committed to that and this approval is further confirmation of the government’s commitment in that direction.

“It also speaks directly to our determination to begin to focus lot more seriously on the activities of informal or illegal miners.”