President Muhammadu Buhari has told his Ministers designate that majority Nigerians are extremely poor.
President
Buhari said this on Tuesday at the end of a two-day Presidential
Retreat for designate and senior Government officials.
Here is the full text of the President’s speech:
After two days, we have come to the end of a successful retreat. However, you will agree that our work is just beginning.
These
last two days have been very instructive for me personally, because I
have had the opportunity to know many of you new Ministers-Designate
better.
I was also pleased to see that you have all equally enjoyed debating and deliberating on the various challenge.
Ladies
and Gentlemen, majority of our people are poor and are anxiously hoping
for a better life. A Nigeria in which they do not have to worry about
what they will eat, where they will live or if they can afford to pay
for their children’s education or healthcare.
Our responsibility
as leaders of this great country is to meet these basic needs for our
people. As I mentioned yesterday, this Administration inherited many
challenges from our predecessors to mention a few:
A country in which 18 local governments in the Northeast were under the control of Boko Haram
Decayed infrastructure in which our rail lines and roads had severely deteriorated;
A
rent seeking economy that depended largely on oil revenues and imports,
Significant unpaid pensions, subsidy debts, legacy contractor debts. I
can go on and on.
In our first term, we laid the foundation to
rebuild our country. We recaptured those 18 Local Governments previously
held by Boko Haram, whose activities are now limited to sporadic
attacks against soft targets.
Our investments in road and rail
infrastructure are without precedent, and many of you can attest to
this. We also focused on diversifying the economy from oil towards
agriculture and industrialization.
Despite reduced revenues from
oil and gas compared to past governments, we have broadly addressed many
of the legacy debts they left behind.
Whilst we have obvious
successes to celebrate, the challenges ahead are significant as you
would have observed in detail over these two days. Nevertheless, from
the quality of the deliberations, it is clear that solutions to our
problems are well researched and have been well articulated.
We
have discussed solutions relating to addressing Insecurity;
Macroeconomic Stability; Agriculture and Food Security; Energy Security
for Petroleum products and Electricity; Transportation and Critical
Infrastructure; Industrialization and SME Development; Human Capital
Development; Social Inclusion; Anti-Corruption; Housing Financing and
Consumer Credit.
Public service is not easy work, and at times it
can be thankless. I am therefore charging you all to see this
opportunity to serve as an honour, to give your best to deliver on this
mandate, for a more prosperous Nigeria, not for some, but for all
Nigerians.
You will find that working collaboratively and
purposefully will enable us to achieve quicker results, recognizing that
four years is not a very long time. For the new Ministers, make sure
you engage and benefit from the experience of the older Ministers and
former Governors in the cabinet.
In terms of coordination, kindly
ensure that all submissions for my attention or meeting requests be
channeled through the Chief of Staff, while all Federal Executive
Council matters be coordinated through the Secretary to the Government
of the Federation.
I would like to thank the Office of the SGF
for coordinating this successful Presidential Retreat. I would also like
to thank the National Assembly leadership, the Party Chairman, Chairman
of the Governors Forum, and resource firms, for the active engagements
and contributions.
Once again, the challenges that lie ahead of
us as a country are significant. But I have no doubt in your individual
capacities and our collective patriotic commitment to deliver a better
Nigeria for us, our children and a brighter future for all.