The Minister of Special Duties and Inter-governmental Affairs, Senator George Akume, has reiterated that President Muhammadu Buhari determined to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years.
Akume stated this Thursday in Abuja at an inter-ministerial meeting convened to create a pathway to actualise the objective.
According to him, the meeting was in furtherance to “Mr. President Buhari’s inaugural Democracy Day address of June 12, 2019, in which he said, ‘With leadership and a sense of purpose, we can lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years.”
The meeting, which was chaired by Senator Akume, had in attendance the following ministers: Alhaji Sabo Nanono (Agriculture and Rural Development); Engr. Suleiman H. Adamu (Water Resources); Otunba Niyi Adebayo (Industry Trade and Investment); Dr. Mahmood Abubakar (Environment), as well as the governor of Ekiti state who is the chairman of Nigerian Governors’ Forum, Dr. Kayode Fayemi.
In his opening remarks, Akume stressed the need for an inter-ministerial platform of relevant ministries to collaborate and network towards harnessing their mandates as a pathway “to drive Mr. President’s vision of lifting 100 million people out of poverty in 10 years.”
He said, “The objectives of the meeting are: harnessing dams for irrigation to increase agricultural production and power generation for empowerment and poverty alleviation; deployment of climate change adaption technologies for empowerment and poverty alleviation; agricultural initiative for empowerment and poverty alleviation and harnessing of sundry opportunities for establishment of cottage industries, cutting across agriculture and rural development, environment, power and water resources along economic corridors in the country.”
