Why We’re Lobbying Foreign Media For Buhari – Lai Mohammed

The Minister of Information, Alh Lai Mohammed, has admitted that the Federal Government is lobbying foreign media organisations and think-thanks to influence their reportage on the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.

Mohammed revealed in London on Thursday that the government wants to correct the negative stories being reported about the country under Buhari’s administration, hence the need to engage the international media organisations.

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The minister said this after holding a meeting with the Royal African Society of the United Kingdom whose goal is to “promote Africa in business, politics, culture and academia.”

Mohammed noted that negative news bordering on Boko Haram insurgency and farmers/herders crisis have been widely reported under the current administration, hence the engagement will help inform the foreign media on true positions of things in the country.

“The whole idea of the trip is to engage foreign media organisations, networks and think tanks to actually explain the activities of government,” said the Information Minister.

“As you were aware, we have been to the UK twice and the U.S. on this kind of mission.

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“I think generally it has been quite fruitful because it offered us the platform and opportunity to explain to them what this government has achieved in the areas of security, fighting corruption and in revamping the economy.

“It also gives us the opportunity to disabuse the minds of the people about the insecurity in the North-East and how the government has succeeded in returning normalcy in affected areas.

“It offers us the opportunity to explain that the farmers/herdsmen clash is largely due to population explosion, climate change and criminality as against the naysayers’ position that it is ethnic or religious.

“Really, it has been quite helpful and we will continue with the engagements.”

On the challenge of unemployment in the country raised during one of the meetings, Mohammed said “the administration had been trying to clean up the mess by past governments.

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“For 16 years, no attempt was made to invest on infrastructure, there was absolute corruption.

“So, what you have today about unemployment is actually as a result of bad governance.

“Even at that, we have made very positive giant strides.

“In the history of Nigeria, no administration under any programme has employed half a million unemployed graduates as we have done through our N-POWER programme.

“We have been able to grow rice farmers from five million to 11 million, we have been able to cut down on importation of rice.

“So, ours is a success story in the areas of agriculture and unemployment.

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“Many of the organisations we met were surprised to hear that we have spent as much as 7.5 billion dollars in two years on infrastructure.

“They were quite impressed to see that power generation jumped from 2,560 megawatts to 7000 megawatts,” said Mohammed.

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