The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, has asserted that the outgoing administration of President Muhammadu Buhari created 12 million new jobs, specifically in the agriculture sector.
During an interview on Channels TV’s Sunrise Daily, Shehu highlighted the accomplishments of the Buhari administration across various sectors, including security, power, and the fight against corruption.
“In agriculture alone, the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN) is talking about 12 million new jobs. Look at what we did in agriculture. This administration inherited just four functional fertilizer processing companies, but now we have 52 operating,” Shehu stated.
He further emphasized the significant impact of these developments on the rice industry: “This shifted the supplies of fertilizer to these 12 million new rice farmers. Today, rice farmers alone domestically produce rice. This country has achieved food sufficiency. We have diversified the economy, and we are no longer a monocultural economy.”
Shehu also highlighted the success in reducing rice imports, saying, “This country had spent $5 billion every day before this administration to buy foreign rice. Today, no US Dollar leaves the Central Bank of Nigeria for foreign rice.”
Regarding corruption, Shehu assured that President Buhari did not possess any accounts with illicit funds and expressed confidence that there would be no prosecution after his term in office.
“As his spokesperson, I go to bed, I sleep soundly convinced that nobody, whether from Nigeria or outside the country, can call me to say we have discovered this bank account and your boss has these huge millions. That’s not Buhari; he is well-above scandal, and that is how it will end,” Shehu concluded.
