Farmers, herdsmen must live together in peace —Lai Mohammed

Alhaji Lai Mohammed is the Minister of Information and Culture. In this interview, he says despite the talks of inaction in the polity, the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari is delivering on its electoral promises, declaring that farmers and herdsmen must live together. ASSOCIATE EDITOR, TAIWO ADISA, brings the excerpts.

 

Looking at the polity right now, would you say your party has fulfilled its electoral promises to the people?

We were very categorical that we were going to address three areas of governance; we are going to fight corruption; we are going to fight insecurity and we are going to revamp the economy. I can say, with all sense of modesty, that we can beat our chest that we have delivered in all those areas.

 

But on the economy, a former CBN Deputy Governor, Professor Moghalu, disagreed with your government’s claim that we have exited recession?

I would rather work on the figure of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) because their indexes and parameters for the country show that we are out of recession. Clearly, even as recently as last week, the NBS came out that, for the 11th month, we have been able to hold down inflation, that inflation today is 15.37 per cent. This has been happening since January 2017.

All indication shows that not only have we exited recession, but that we are making a lot of gains in all the parameters either in the areas of foreign reserves or foreign investment or in the area of inflation or job creation. Whatever Mr Moghalu has said would run against the current of the figures that had been produced by the NBS which is the best body today that can tell us whether we are out of recession or not. It is the same body that told us we were in recession and it is the same body that said we are out of recession. So far, they are yet to tell us we have slipped back to recession.

 

You have done so much in the fight against Boko Haram. However, it appears that the insurgents have regrouped while Fulani herdsmen/farmers clashes also threatened the security of the nation…

Security is an issue that every nation at one point in time will have to contend with. I am happy you have acknowledged that we are making progress fighting insecurity in the country. The herdsmen/farmers

clash was not invented by this government. It actually predates this government. If you go back to history, it dates back to independence. But I am assuring you that this government is determined to resolve the issue.

This government is determined to take specific steps to find a definite end to this issue. It is about containment, it is about accommodation and it is about understanding. There must be farmers, there must be herdsmen. They must live together. We are determined as a government that shedding of the blood of just one person is too much. It is not about number, it is about the fact that we put a price to human’s life. I m glad that already things are being put in place, such as the committee headed by the Vice President to find long time solution to herdsmen/farmers clashes.

 

There is the claim that the attacks were not perpetrated by herdsmen, but by foreign Fulani bandits. Are the security agencies so weak that they cannot fish out these bandits and stop them from entering this country?

Without going into the details, it is a very complex issue You talked about bandits, what about the militias that ware funded and sponsored by the late Libyan president, Muamma Ghadafi, around the same area? As a government we have resolved to find a lasting solution to it. Whether they are bandits or marauders or militias sponsored by the late Ghadafi, what is important for us as a government is to ensure that the shedding of blood whether of the farmers or herdsmen is brought to an end.

 

There are queues all over. Fuel scarcity is back, why? Are we also paying subsidy on fuel?

The fuel situation is much better than it was before now. As for subsidy, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources has said a lot of about subsidy. I don’t think it is possible not to pay subsidy in

the circumstance.

 

One of the ardent supporters of this administration, Pastor Tunde Bakare, did a State of the Nation address and said the government has failed in the three areas you mentioned earlier.  How do you counter that?

We are very confident. We don’t have any apologies for our success. Our success is out there. At the beginning of this conversation, I said there were many indexes with which you can measure whether a country is improving economically or not. I am glad to say that not only have grown our foreign reserves from $23billion to $40 billion, despite the fact that for the larger part of the time oil sold for $30pb. This is the highest since 2014. This clearly does not indicate failure on the part of the government.

Again, NBS said headline inflation has fallen for 11 consecutive months. It is now at 15.37 per cent as at December 2017. The target we set for ourselves by the ERGP for inflation has been met and surpassed. You can’t talk about failure. Then the TSA has stopped hemorrhaging, since we came in, from the treasury. We were even able to eliminate ghost workers and that has saved us over N120 billion. We have been able to save about N108 billion from the removal of maintenance fees payable to banks pre-TSA because we pay directly. We have saved N24.7billion monthly through determined implementation of TSA.

You talked about jobs. What jobs are talking about? In agriculture, we have created an extra 6.2 million jobs. From six million jobs two and a half years ago, today we have about 12.2 million jobs in agricultural sector alone. How can anyone claim that we have not succeeded in creating jobs? Our strategy in the area of encouraging local production of rice has worked. From 64,000 metric tonnes a year, two and half a years ago, today we import less than 20,000 metric tonnes. You can imagine the kinds of saving that would bring to government.

In the area of infrastructure, we also have good news. Power, today, is at an all-high of 7000 megawatts and we are also able to transmit 7000 megawatts. In the area of distribution, we distribute over 5000 megawatts today and the exta 2,000 megawatts, which we cannot distribute, we are trying to get willing buyers for these megawatts.

Still on the infrastructure, the Lagos-Kano modern gauge is on course. We are very optimistic that by 2019 Lagos-Ibadan axis of it will be commissioned while the Kano-Kaduna modern gauge will also be ready by 2019. The coastal rail, which will link 15 cities, is also being worked upon and we are hoping that by 2021 the entire, mostly the coastal rail and the modern gauge, will be completed.

On roads, contracts had been awarded for 25 major highways at the cost of N100 billion. Every geo-political zone of the country is included in this transformation of road infrastructure. These are things that the opposition does not want to hear. These facts are out there for anybody to go and verify. Again on security, we know we are winning the war.