KACHIKWU: NIGERIA IS WORKING

The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, has charged critics of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration to be sincere and objective in assessing the performance of the government, saying emphatically that Nigeria is working.

Kachikwu said antagonists of government should have expended the time spent in criticising the administration judiciously by looking at and commend efforts of the APC-led government in reshaping the country through people-oriented social investment programmes and policies targeted at energizing the economy.

The minister commended President Muhammadu Buhari for giving so much to revamping the country irrespective of his age and health.

He said the president has been dogged in reshaping the country.

He, therefore, urged Nigerians to devote more time to debating the progress of the country and what they can do to move the nation forward than devoting time to discussing personalities and frivolous criticism of government.
Kachikwu spoke yesterday at the signing of a $200 million Nigeria Content Development Fund Memorandum of Understanding between the Nigeria Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) and the Bank of Industry (BoI) held at the auditorium of the Petroleum Technology Development Fund in Abuja thursday.

He such great achievements recorded by the government is the absence of queue in filling stations across the country due to reorganization and repositioning of the petroleum industry, stressing that “it took a lot of work for this government to get there and it took a lot of work to sustain it”, adding that the spate of militancy and disruption of oil production in the Niger Delta has drastically been reduced.

This, he said, is one of the many revolutionary drive of the government in the oil and gas sector, adding that there are more to be done to achieve optimal success especially to reduce the current price of producing a barrel of oil put at $32.

He said: “I believe that the NNPC can do that because government will work with the Ministry of Power to quicken gas delivery in the country by privatizing infrastructure in the oil and gas sector.

The kicking off of the local content intervention fund, he said is another achievement of the administration stressing that the fund will help to galvanise local and foreign investment, ginger stakeholders to work assiduously in the industry and grow local content.

While commending both NCDMB and BoI for the partnership, he cautioned that in administering the fund, factors such as geographical spread, adoption of cutting edge technology and focus on oil producing communities should be put into consideration.