In response to Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s statement regarding the condition of Nigeria, the minister of information, Lai Mohammed said no government has done so much with so little like Buhari’s administration.
The former president of Nigeria, Obasanjo had earlier said at a dialogue on Friday, September 11 that Nigeria is on the verge of collapse.
The presidency has, however, fired back on Sunday September 13, through the ministry of information in a statement which disclosed that President Muhammadu Buhari’s emergence in 2015 saved Nigeria from collapse.
“President Muhammadu Buhari’s assumption of office in 2015 prevented Nigeria from becoming a failed state, after a long stretch of rapacious and rudderless leadership,” Mohammed stated.
The minister therefore considered it a cruel irony that those who wasted a great opportunity to put Nigeria on a sound socio-economic footing, at a time of financial buoyancy, and those who planted the seed of the insecurity in some parts of the country today, are the same people pointing accusing fingers at a ‘reformist government.’
Mohammed affirmed that, ” Nigeria today faces a lot of challenges. But whatever situation the country has found itself in, things would have been much worse but for the deft management of resources, unprecedented fight against corruption, determined battle against insurgency and banditry as well as the abiding courage of Mr President in piloting the ship of state.”
According to the statement released, he maintained that Nigeria is not a failed state, but a nation courageously tackling its challenges and building a solid infrastructure that will serve as the basis for socio-economic development.
Mohammed said Buhari came into office at a time that a swathe of the country’s territory was under occupation, a period when many Nigerian towns and cities, including the capital city of Abuja, were a playground for insurgents and a moment that the nation’s wealth had been looted dry, with little or nothing to show for the nation’s huge earnings, especially in the area of infrastructure.
The minister said the naysayers are pinpointing instances of insecurity in the country, forgetting that the country could have been overrun by insurgents and bandits if President Buhari had not rallied regional and international allies to help in combating the insurgency which was already on before his assumption in to office.
”They aggravate the national fault lines with their angry and unguarded actions and rhetoric, forgetting that while national fissures are amplified at a time of dwindling economic fortunes, what is needed to foster peace and unity is not reckless elocution but responsible and responsive leader, ” he explained.
