The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has said that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration is on the right track of economic development and there was no alternative to what it is doing.
The minister stated this at a meeting with the members of staff of the Nigerian Embassy in Madrid, Spain.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the meeting was during the minister’s two-day official visit to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO).
“I believe that we are on the right track, there will be some pains, but there is no alternative to what we are doing,’’ he said.
Mohammed said the administration had fulfilled its campaign promises to address insecurity, fix the economy and fight corruption.
In the area of security, the minister said that when Buhari came on board, 14 of the 20 local government areas of Borno, four in Adamawa and three in Yobe were under the sovereign authority of Boko Haram.
He said that with proactive measures and soft diplomacy with neighbouring African countries, the U.S, France and the G-8 had helped the country to “decisively deal with Book Haram.
“Today, all the major highways leading to Maiduguri are opened and about two months ago, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) played a league match in Maiduguri stadium,’’ he said.
On the renewed agitations in the Niger-Delta region and parts of the South-East, the minister reassured that the government would not marginalise any part of the country, and assured that economic development would go round to everyone.
According to the minister, the present administration is implementing fiscal discipline and other measures to address the messed up economy it inherited from its predecessors.
The Minister Consular of the Embassy, Sola Akinlude, who conducted the minister round the embassy, said the official population of Nigerians resident in Spain was about 100,000. (NAN)