Date: 2018-04-05

Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has said that this administration has delivered on its campaign promises in the areas of tackling insecurity, fighting corruption and revamping the economy.

Alhaji Lai Mohammed stated this when the head of Civil service of the Federation (HOCSF) Winifred Oyo-Ita led a team of Permanent Secretaries on a courtesy visit to the minister.

He said the administration has been very true and faithful in its policies in the less than three years that it has been in power that it will tackle corruption, tackle insecurity and revamp the economy.

"It does not matter what the naysayers are saying. One thing they have not been able to do is challenge the figures that we put out.

"We tell them that despite the occasional suicide attack and cowardly act of Boko Haram, this government has done a lot to reverse the trend of terrorism. Since 2015 there has been no attack on the Nations capital" he said.

The minister who said the Buhari's government was divine will, said "because God loves this country I can't imagine what would have happened if it was the other way in terms of the state of infrastructure, economy, unemployment and all we have been doing so far is to bring back the economy from the brink of collapse". Speaking earlier, Winifred Oyo-Ita called for more funding for the ministry of Information and culture to enable it efficiently carry out its duties of propagating government's programmes and activities.

Oyo-Ita who noted that the achievements recorded by President Muhammadu Buhari's administration are not given the required publicity said a lot is being done that is not been projected out there.

She said the ministry of Information and Culture is a loaded ministry with a huge scope of work meant for it achieves but it faces a huge challenge being underfunded.

"It should be regarded as a Grade A ministry. You know there is a kind of silent separation of ministries. Silent I say because it is not written anywhere. We have these ministries that are classified as A,B, or C depending on their budget. "And you find the infrastructure ministries are all under A and B and then the service and capacity development ministries are being put somewhere and these are the ones that are critical. The information ministry is not getting what it should get in terms of funding" she said.

The meeting was the third of its peer review visits to various Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

Oyo-Ita said the peer review is aimed at giving the permanent secretaries the opportunities to exchange ideas and meet with their colleagues to get firsthand brief of what their mandate, and vision is and also how they carry out their activities, and tackle challenges.