Lai Mohammed Claims Media ‘Inconsiderate’ In Reporting Buhari’s Govt

The Federal Government has appealed to the media not to blame the present administration for the maladministration of the past administrations, and to be objective in their reportage.

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, made the appeal in Abuja on Tuesday when he received a delegation from TVC Communications, owner of TV Continental.

He appealed to the media to see the present Administration as a victim of years of maladministration, not culprit.

Mohammed said the government was conscious of the power of the media, but such power must come with ‘‘responsibility, objectivity and fairness.’’

He said for the media to achieve a balanced and fair assessment of the Administration, it must take into consideration the challenges it met upon assuming office and the efforts to address them.

‘‘The way the media generally are reporting the government shows that they do not take into consideration the challenges we met on ground.

‘‘Where we are today, it took many years of maladministration before we got there and the media must take this into consideration to get a balanced and objective assessment.

‘‘The Administration has come on a rescue mission, but unfortunately, we are being reported and assessed as if we are the culprit and not victim,’’ he said.

Mohammed stressed that the challenges the Administration inherited were daunting but it has remained focused and resolute in addressing them.

The Minister said when the Administration took over power in 2015, it met almost an empty treasury with a combination of factors like crash in price of crude, recession, decay in infrastructure among others.

He said with right policies and fiscal discipline the government brought the country out of recession and had raised its foreign reserve above 43 billion dollar.

The Minister said the Policy of Ease of Doing Business is working and the Administration’s agricultural revolution is moving Nigeria close to self-sufficiency in rice.

He said the Home-Grown School Feeding Programme had created jobs for 61,352 cooks, and it is providing 6.4million school children in 33,981 schools across 20 states with one meal a day.

Mohammed said the administration inherited power generation of 2,690 MW even when over 16 billion dollar had been spent on power reforms.

He said with the efforts of the government, power generation has increased to 7,000 megawatts and the administration’s is embarking on a massive infrastructural development.

Mohammed said that Boko Haram had been massively degraded and the suicide attacks by the hitherto emboldened group were act of defeat and cowardice.

He said the era of impunity was over and the corrupt elements in the society were those leading the criticism and campaign of calumny against the government.

The Minister noted that his position should not be misunderstood as giving excuses, saying that the government would remain focus and committed to delivering dividends of democracy.

He said the government was conscious of the fact that democracy cannot thrive without press freedom, and reiterated the position of government not to stifle press freedom.

Earlier, Andrew Hanlan, the Chief Executive Officer of TVC, said they would open a new server and a radio station in Abuja in April.

He said his organisation was committed to the development of audio-visual sector, economy and employment generation in the country.

Hanlan thanked the Minister and the National Broadcasting Commission for their support.

The Chief Executive Officer was accompanied by Ronan Redmond, Director of Communication, Babajide Otitoju, Head of News and Taiwo Amodu, the Abuja Bureau Chief of the TVC Station.