By Dele Ogbodo
The federal government on Wednesday said Nigerians should look back and count the blessings that the administration of President Muhammadu
Buhari has brought to the country’s economy even as it is working very hard to meet its campaign promises of 2015.
In a statement, the Senior Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to the President, Mallam Garba Shehu, said irrespective of the other areas where the government is still working hard to ensure that every citizen can feel the change for which they massively voted in 2015.
Shehu said: “We wish, however, to caution that these comments should not be misconstrued as denying that there is more that needs to be done, as the current administration is relentless and determined to continue in its task of continuously improving the lot of Nigerians.
“We are only saying that we must learn to pause and count our blessings. The loud voices of critics with selfish ambitions and ulterior motives should not be a veil that keeps Nigerians blind to the many ways God has blessed us and improved our lot through the Buhari administration.
According to him, World Bank ranked in 2017, ranked Nigeria among the top 10 reforming economies in the world. This was clearly in recognition of the thorough and rigorous growth and development-oriented economic policies of the Buhari administration.
He said: “Today, investors and business men and women from around the world can arrive in Nigeria and get their visas right at the airport without any hassle. This is just one of the many reasons why Nigeria has advanced 24 steps in the global ‘Ease of Doing Business’ rankings of the World Bank.”
According to him, the present administration is spending more on infrastructure than previous administrations, despite earning barely half of what the country earned from oil between 2011 and 2014 when the product was selling for an average of $110 per barrel.
He added that the administration has also ushered in significant progress in agriculture, where output has risen in local production, and Nigeria is now importing 80-90 percent less rice than in previous years.
“Fertilizer plants have been resuscitated, prices have dropped. More and more young people are going into agriculture, being able, for the first time, to see farming as a viable endeavour. Has anyone heard of the Graduates-in-Agriculture Scheme in several states of the federation, a self-driven, government-assisted programme by which our young men and women are stopping their endless wait for white-collar jobs and creating wealth for themselves and the nation. Power generation and distribution have more than doubled from 2015 when President Buhari took power to the present.”
“We have seen today the empirical evidence of the successes of this programme, and all of that is evident for us to see and listen to several testimonies and stories. 200,000 jobs for undergraduates employed under the N-Power programme, 300,000 more waiting to be employed; they have been pre-selected; over 7 million children being fed daily in 22 States so far; beneficiaries of micro-credit loans going to about 300,000; and almost 300,000 households benefiting from conditional cash transfers.” he said.