Nigeria’s former Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Dr Maitama Sule, has appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to address the problems confronting the country head-on.
This is just as the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, described the immediate past administration in the country as weak and corrupt.
Sule, on Friday, in Kano, urged the president to put the Nigerian economy on the path of recovery and invigorate the education sector.
According to him, the country requires a redirection and because the challenges associated with reforms are enormous, Nigerians need to support the president.
Alhaji Mohammed was in Kano in company with five other ministers for a town hall meeting designed to intimate Kano residents of President Buhari’s achievements in the last one year.
At the meeting, conducted in Hausa language, the minister said, “for the first time, we have a president whose integrity is the driving force in the country.”
The other federal cabinet members in attendance at the meeting are the Minister for Interior, General Abdulraman Bello Danbazau; Minister of State for Trade and Investment, Hajiya Aisha Abubakar; Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu; Minister of State for Budget and Planning, Hajiya Zainab Ahmed and Minister of State for Solid Minerals, Bawa Buari.
Mohammed said the present administration inherited “a very sick government,” adding that “we came into government at a very bad time.”
The minister, who said that the Buhari-led government had spent the past one year planning and blocking leakages, claimed that “our opponents have stolen so much money that they are richer than the government.”
According to the minister, the victory of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the last general election was a manifestation of the love that God has for Nigeria.
He said the administration remained committed to its promises to fight corruption, improve the economy and ensure security of lives and property.
The minister described the Kano event as unique because it was the first time the indigenous language would be employed for a town hall meeting.
“We have never held it anywhere before and the choice of Kano was for obvious reasons. So, we are trying an experiment today in Kano, to try to talk to our people in the language they understand. I might be the only person who would be permitted to speak in English at this town hall meeting,” he added.
The minister said further that during the life of the previous administration, Nigeria was in a mess due to squandering of public funds, revealing that currently, the country was losing over 60 percent of its revenue due to the fall of oil prices in the world market.
He said to tackle the security challenges in the country, the chief of which was arguably Boko Haram, the president on assumption of office, enlisted the support of neighbouring countries like Benin Republic, Chad, Niger and Cameroon.
Speaking at the event, the Kano State governor, Dr Abdullahi Umaru Ganduje, expressed delight that the meeting was organised in the most populous state, the commercial nerve centre of northern Nigeria and even of West Africa.
Senators, members of the House of Representatives, security chiefs, captains of industries, traditional rulers, religious leaders, representatives of trade and pressure groups, students, farmers and other categories of Nigerians attended the meeting.
