Minister Seeks Nigerians’ Understanding Over Hardship

Minister of budget and economic planning, Atiku Bagudu, has urged Nigerians to remain hopeful and keep faith with the government claiming that President Bola Tinubu’s policies aimed at transforming the nation are already bearing fruits and delivering results.

Bagudu, a former governor of Kebbi State, spoke at a national policy summit themed “Activating the Policies and Promises in the Renewed Hope Agenda” organised by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (P-BAT) Academics and Professionals in Abuja.

He said that Nigerians have a reason to be optimistic because they have found a leader in Tinubu who had succeeded before in a leadership capacity by transforming Lagos from what it used to be through inclusive leadership.

“Today, there is a cry for inclusion across the country and we have a leader who believes in inclusion and has practised it in Lagos by creating a state that worked for all, carrying everyone along and allowing them to excel,” he said.

The convener and national coordinator of P-BAT Academics and Professionals, Prof Yemi Oke, informed that P-BAT Academics and Professionals is a group of academics, intellectuals and intellectually minded professionals, whose aim is to volunteer its time, efforts and resources to support President Bola Tinubu.

Oke noted that the group’s views and suggestions have been implemented by some agencies and ministries of government.

He said, “Ahead of this Summit, we organized ‘Pre-Conferences’ and ‘Mini-Summits’ along the 8-point agenda of the Tinubu administration. Those Pre-Conferences and Mini-Summits gave us the opportunity to push out some of our views as ‘Policy Advisors’.

“We are happy to report that a lot of our views and suggestions in those ‘Policy Advisories’ are being implemented by some of the agencies and ministries of government,” he said.

In the same vein, spokesperson of the group, Mrs Mary Ikoku, said: “Nigeria is not absolved from what is happening globally.”

While calling for calm amid hardships caused by the ongoing economic reforms, she said “in the UK you see people who can’t even warm up their homes, they can’t warm themselves from the cold, and that is a country where you could say they don’t have a lot of poor people. They don’t have the multidimensional poverty that you can say Nigeria is trying to work its way out of.”

“Other countries are struggling. We need to give this government time. With the support that people like these academics and professionals are doing, more people should actually do what this group is doing to support the country,” she added.