Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed recently visited the corporate head office of Daily Trust Abuja where he fielded questions on a number of issues. He also explained conditions for accessing the N5000 monthly allowance for unemployed youth introduced by the APC administration. Excerpts:

Will your government have the courage to do the right thing with regards to subsidy removal?

The economy team is working very hard and by the time the budget comes out I think it would be clear to us whether or not oil subsidy will remain; right now I can't say if fuel subsidy will be removed.

Talking about the budget; we have had figures bandied around that you want to stimulate economic development; that there is going to be more on capital rather than recurrent. Can you give us an insight into the budget?

I am not going to give you exact figures but I know that it is not Eight Trillion and I can tell you that given the crash in the price of crude which demand worldwide for commodity items and slow growth, I think this government intends that the best way out is to provide stimulus to reflect the economy. However we are going to increase the percentage of our allocation in favour of capital in the next budget. Yes we are very ambitious and I don't want to mention figures which are not even cat in stobe but I can tell you that we will concentrate on capital more than recurrent for the simple reason that you can't go borrowing money to spend on recurrent since it is a loan that you are going to pay back. We are going to borrow money but we will invest such monies in infrastructure; in roads, power etc.

I want to use this opportunity to explain that this government is very sincere very committed and much focused. Yes we are experiencing some temporary pains but honestly I can assure you that given the commitment of the administration and given the commitment of the cabinet and government all these temporary pains would be a thing of the past. I know that Nigerians today are groaning under the yoke of fuel and I am glad to say that by yesterday both chambers of the national assembly actually approved the supplementary budget and it is amazing that of the 574 billion USD or so that was approved as supplementary budget close to 421 billion of it is for fuel subsidy alone. Actually 521 USD because I know that when we went to the National Assembly asking them to pay arrears of 413 billion which was supposed to cover last year August till the end of September, by the time it was being considered NNPC came and said look why do you want to do this thing in bits; why don't we resolve the matter once and for all. That is why what was approved yesterday; the entire N574 billion, 421bn of it is for fuel subsidy while the balance is to continue the war effort in the Northeastern part of Nigeria.

Now people ask us why we waited for this to happen. The truth of the matter is that the money approved in 2015 budget for fuel subsidy was exhausted and we had to go back to the national assembly to seek for approval. We had the money; we could easily have paid the marketers but that would be unlawful spending without appropriation. But I can assure you that by the grace of God Nigerians would not have to experience this kind of scarcity again. It is not just about being owed in arrears; it is also based on the fact that some very unpatriotic Nigerians are also taking advantage of the situation to make life much more uncomfortable for Nigerians. But honestly we believe that in a few days' time this money would have been paid and all these long queues would disappear. We are not going to make excuses but we do have challenges and some of these challenges are hampering our movement but we are committed and we are focused and we believe that in a few days to come; especially with the submission of the 2016 budget to the national assembly Nigerians should begin to heave a sigh of relief.

With respect to the budget how about this idea of N500 to unemployed youth which is generating a lot of controversy?

What people look at is social intervention such as the one we are talking about such as one meal in a day, such as N500 per month to the more vulnerable Nigerians; they should stop looking at it in terms of recurrent expenditure because most of it also is going to be through capital expenditure. This is because you are going to invest in utensils, tools and also what we call social capital. Secondly there is no way a country like ours can avoid these massive social interventions. The only way to take millions of Nigerians out of abject poverty is by these social interventions. For those who have taken time to look at the details of this programme they will realize that these are conditional cash transfers and you are able to enjoy them only if you meet certain conditions. For instance we want to encourage immunization; we want to encourage school enrolment. So for you to enjoy these cash transfers even if you belong to what we classify as the most vulnerable Nigerians you also have some civic responsibilities you must convince us that you are doing and that way we are also stimulating the economy in a way. If you look at the one meal a day programme, there is no better way to stimulate the economy than that. If I remember very well Osun State started it and it has revolutionized agriculture in Osun State so much so that they have to look elsewhere like Kwara and Oyo states for their needs. I can imagine even if it is just one egg a day and we are producing one million to two million eggs a day you can see how much that means to our poultry industry. So people should stop looking at this social intervention as money down the drain; the record we have is that Nigeria is only second to India with the highest percentage of stunted children; people who are underweight and those who are under height. The critical period for any child if I am correct is between the first one thousand days. Now if a child is malnourished in the early days the child gets stunted and this does not only affect physical growth but also the mental capability so this is social capital we are investing in and records have shown that children from certain parts of the country because of their stunted growth do not respond to learning like the ones from other parts of the country. And I am happy that the World Bank has some pilot programmes of this conditional cash transfer in Jigawa and some other states.

We are committed to this not just because they attract people but we see the fundamental need for them. People would tell you that N5000 is rather too small; many people have lost their lives because they were unable to access hospitals. N5000 might look too small to me and you but it is a lot to the average Nigerian and most of these programmes have an exit date; it is not something you are going to take for life. For the university graduates who are unemployed they can only access this fund if they enroll on vocational programmes or they decide to take on some other skill acquisition programmes. For the youth service graduate we also have a similar programme for them but we should look at it that any nation that fails to invest in its people is doomed.

How then do we identify the vulnerable Nigerians?

It is very simple. We should look at the prospects and not the challenges. Let me take Osun state as an example, apart from the one meal a day programme that Osun runs they also run a programme called Osun elders and these are people in Osun state who are above the age of 65 years or thereabout. Not only must you be above 65 years but it must be proven that you have no dependants and they keep you for two years; if they are not able to get it from day one but along the line you get it right. I think in Nigeria today between INEC, the banks, the National Identity Management Scheme and FIRSC, we have a pool of data that we can use and don't forget that we are running a federal system of government which makes it easier for us; I go to Kaduna State and say Kaduna State you compile for us a list and these are the criteria. You can do it local government by local government and even get down to ward by ward. How do we vote? We start from the polling booth and we all know how many people that vote in our polling booth so all these data from the various organizations would help us. The good thing is that some other countries have done it; Brazil has done it and I must add that World Bank is partnering us in this project.