Ajuri Ngelale, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, has said that with his new mandate from his position, he will ensure that Nigerians understand there has been an institutional problem not just in the presidency but in all agencies of the federal and state governments. saying they do everything possible to protect the principle of serving the public, and in so doing, “You end up being in a situation where you find it right or defensible to attack the people who gave you the opportunity to serve in the first place.”
He promised to be humble, to listen, and to deal in a communication approach with mutual respect, but especially respect for the people of Nigeria.
In an interview with ARISE NEWS on Friday, Ajuri Ngelale, speaking on the subdidy removal and the back and forth with the NLC, said, the government has first of all acknowledged the pain of the people, and they understand food prices, energy prices, and fuel prices have gone up, and wages are stagnated and currency devalued.
He said regardless, “Most agree the government approach is the right approach, and there is short-term pain for long-term gain,” and the only issue currently is how we alleviate the pain as much and as fast as possible.
He commended President Bola Tinubu, saying there has hardly been a president who is more vocal and engaged than President Tinubu. In President Tinubu’s remarks, he laid out his measures in an empathetic tone, and some of them are: “He recognized we have an energy affordability crisis on our hands; he has announced and made available 100 billion naira for the purchase of 3000 CNG buses that will be brought in, reducing the costs for the people.”
He also added that on food security, “The president has directed the immediate release of two hundred thousand metric tons of grains from strategic grain reserves to ensure oversupply gets out, helping to crash the costs of some commodities as quickly as possible.”
He said in addition, the president is dealing with NSME capitalization, putting in place money for all business classes across all states of the federation to help businesses expand their operations.
Speaking on the immediate fix of the electricity problems, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity said, “We are investing right now in rectifying our distribution problems. We know that we have twelve thousand megawatts worth of power generation capacity in the country, and we know that we can produce eight thousand megawatts as of today, which we have been supplying to Niger and other countries on our border because we haven’t had an effective way of evacuating it through an effective distribution to the homes and businesses of Nigerians.”
Concluding his interview, Ajuri Ngelale said President Bola Tinubu believes that preventing corruption is better than curing it. He says The days of reactively dealing with corruption, where you waited for a person to steal mass wealth enough to have influence over the judicial system, are gone, and now people will not even get the chance to be corrupt in the first place. He commended Tinubu, saying he had used some of these measures in building Lagos before, which worked, and he would do it again for Nigeria.
On the ministerial nominees, he voiced a disclaimer, saying, “There is no ministerial nominee who has been convicted of any crime in the court of law to suggest they are unfit or incompetent to hold public office, and if that were the case, there would be a question to raise.” he said If we are dealing with media trials or perceptions, these perceptions need to be a reality in order for anyone to be barred from public office, and Nigerians wouldn’t be happy with the government if they were fighting corruption on the basis of media trials.
-Catherine Amaga
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