Minister of Information and Culture Alhaji Lai Mohammed has appealed to the media not to mock the Federal Government’s anti-corruption war, urging media practitioners to support the administration’s fight against the menace.
He stressed that as the fourth estate of the realm, the media cannot afford to sit on the fence in the battle to rid the nation of corruption.
He spoke yesterday in Abuja while opening the 68th General Assembly of the Broadcasting Organisations of Nigeria (BON).
The minister said while the media should not hesitate to criticise the government’s strategy on the war against corruption, when necessary, it should do so without mocking the government.
“In recent times, it is not unusual to read such headlines as ‘Buhari’s government losing anti-corruption war’, ‘Buhari’s anti-corruption war is failing’, ‘Arewa youths knock President Buhari over failing anti-corruption war’. This is sheer mockery. And this war is not Buhari’s war. It is our war,” he said.
On why all hands must be on deck to fight corruption, Mohammed said corruption was responsible for the many ills being experienced in the country, including erratic power supply, poorly-equipped hospitals, lack of motorable roads, poor quality of life, poor economy, lack of jobs and insecurity.
“After previous administrations spent billions of dollars on power, all we inherited – when we took over on May 29, 2015 – was 2,690 megawatts. That is due to corruption. After previous governments budgeted billions for roads over the years, what we inherited are death traps. That is due to corruption. Why did Boko Haram thrive for so long? The answer is corruption, because money meant for the purchase of weapons for the military were simply diverted. Why did we inherit an economy in dire straits? It is corruption. For a country that sold oil at over 100 dollars per barrel for years, we simply failed to save for the rainy day, and when the rain came, it beat us silly,” he said.
The minister said the war against corruption was the toughest of the three broad issues that the Buhari administration campaigned with, “because fighting corruption anywhere is like walking a lonely road”.
Mohammed said the war against corruption becomes tougher when the media is not on board.
He said because of the courageous leadership provided by the President, “despite the fact that corruption is fighting back furiously, the administration is winning the war”.
“For our efforts so far, we have so much to showcase: Because we are tackling corruption, we have succeeded in raising power generation from 2,690 to an all-time high of 7,001MW. Because we are tackling corruption, we are saving N25 billion monthly by cutting unnecessary allowances of officials. Because we are tackling corruption, we have added 500 million dollars to our Sovereign Wealth Fund that stagnated at the $1 billion that was used to set it up. We have raised our foreign reserves from $23 billion to $35 billion dollars. We stopped the payment of phantom subsidy of between N800 billion and N1.3 trillion annually, yet petroleum products are available at competitive prices.
“We recovered at least $43 million and 56 houses from just one former government official. We have recovered $2.9 billion from looters so far. Our Whistle-blower policy has led to the recovery of $151 million and N8 billion in looted funds from just three sources,” the minister said.
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