Nigerian Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has said corruption and insecurity had never been more severely dealt with in the history of the country than the administration is currently doing, even as he disclosed that a reliable figure of the looted funds recovered by the administration was not in his possession.
The Information Minister, while speaking on Friday night via telephone on his way to the Lagos-based Radio Continental’s studios for a live program, Kubanje Direct, had been asked by the anchor of the program, Jones Usen, if Alhaji Mohammed could provide the figure of the looted public funds recovered so far when the Minister said he would “get back with a correct and reliable figure” without saying when.
He, however, said N260bn and N90bn had been spent on roads and bridges and the power sector respectively by the administration since assuming office in 2015. He also explained that 7,000 megawatts of electricity is now being generated in the country, out of which over 6,000 megawatts are being transmitted and 4,000 megawatts distributed nationwide.
Alhaji Mohammed had said the two issues of corruption and insecurity were major planks of the administration’s campaign. He declared that he was “absolutely convinced” that the designation of the Independent People of Biafra (IPOB) as a terrorist group was in order as the group had “publicly solicited for arms to fight fatherland and threatened that Somalia would be paradise when compared to Nigeria.”
He added that the fact that another group from the south eastern Nigeria as the IPOB, the Movement for the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), has not been proscribed “speaks volume as to confirming that the activities of IPOB are not for self determination.”
He then noted that with the reduction of insecurity, constitution of the Corruption Monitoring Committee headed by Justice Ayo Salami, improvement in electricity supply and the economy that has come out of recession through non oil sector, “the future of Nigeria is brighter.”
He, however, expressed regrets that the members of the public that are against the government of President Muhammadu Buhari are more than those supporting it and urged Nigerians to work toward keeping the country as one.
It is recalled that several allegations of embezzlements of public funds have been leveled against a number of public officials in the last administration of the former President Goodluck Jonathan. Seizures as well as discoveries of huge sums of money hidden in private properties have also been made in recent time.
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