The Buhari administration has created a new set of millionaires- Lai Mohammed, says Nigeria is out of recession in Agricultural, Manufacturing and Solid Mineral sectors

 

Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, was a guest on Channels TV this morning where he highlighted the gains of the Buhari-led administration, one of which he said is that the government has created a new set of millionaires through its agricultural policies. Speaking during the interview session, Lai Mohammed said;

"What this government has done is that in the area of agriculture, we have created a new set of millionaires in Kebbi, Imo, Jigawa, Kano states so much that today, these new farmers have been empowered and we have made agriculture quite attractive to them".

On why food prices have continued to increase in this administration, Lai Mohammed said 

"In any country where you lack basic infrastructure like roads, railways, power, you are going to have a situation where the cost of food would go up and that is why we are investing in infrastructural development. On rail line, we have commenced the construction of the 150km per hour Lagos-Ibadan rail. We have been able to put down our $1.2bn counterpart funding that would make us do also Kano-Kaduna-Calabar and Port Harcourt line. By the time these things are put in place, traders would be able to bring tomatoes by train from Kano to Lagos ou would be able to bring food from the middlebelt and that is what is going to make your food cheap. As we speak today, what government is trying to do is how do we subsidize transportation of these food items to bring them down. So if you don't have power, roads, railways in any part of the world, the cost of food would go up".

According to the Minister, the government has been able to move the economy out of recession in the agricultural, Manufacturing and Solid Mineral sectors. 

"Despite these austere times, we actually did move out of recession in manufacturing, agriculture and solid minerals"

Lai Mohammed explained that Nigeria has been able to move out of recession in the manufacturing sector because of the government's commitment to "invest in infrastructure, to improve the ease of doing business and unlike the previous administration where 16% was spent on infrastructure in 2015, we spent 30% in 2017 and that is why you can see that we are climbing out of recession".

Lai added that in 2015, 29 sub sectors of the economy were under-performing but this administration has decreased the number to 16.