News Obiaks News

Most Nigerians seem to be fed up with the irregularities that prevailed during the last political dispensation, especially regarding appointments of ministers and setting up of MDAs. To curb these irregularities, President Muhammad Buhari had said he would reduce the number of ministries and MDAs by merging some of them together. This became imperative regarding the shortfall in crude oil price, which is the main stay of the Nigerian economy.

Media Houses have gone to the street to find out what Nigerians have to say about the proposed merging of the ministries and the results obtained were overwhelming. The poll result was from a polling partnership between BusinessDay Media and NOIPolls Limited. The poll results were released on Wednesday in Abuja and it showed that the 72 percent of Nigerians support the proposed merger of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the federal government, with the merging of EFCC and ICPC highlighted as top priority.

According to the report, most Nigerians (87 percent) consider September 2015 as a good time for the President to appoint his ministers. 31% respondents feel the president needs time to select the best persons, while 13% feel the president should take his time  since careful choice would translate to better governance.

However, the president has solicited for support from Nigerians on the war against insurgency. He said: “Nigerians must not leave this war for the presidency alone; everybody must be fully involved if Nigeria is to make headway in the fight against insurgents”.

He dismissed the insinuation that members of the National Assembly were individually collecting over one million each month as their pay package. He added that: “there is a lot to be done including building confidence in the Nigerian electoral process”. The skills and planning required in planning a number of national elections in an atmosphere of continued suspicion of each party is a major challenge in itself.

President Muhammadu Buhari blamed past administrations for the current situation in which Nigeria is forced to spend billions of naira annually on subsidy for petroleum products. He also said, “Permit me to take this opportunity to interrogate the place and role of Nigerians overseas in the Change Agenda of this administration”.

“For me these points that you have made about what is going on in this country, about corruption, about the economy, about security, we all know these and that is why some of us are prepared to stick out our neck to achieve change".

He said everyone must now comply with the Nigerian Constitution and place Nigeria above every other factor. He said government would improve the local refining capacity to reduce the over 37 per cent of foreign exchange applied to the importation of refined products. The President said that government would implement social intervention schemes to make no fewer than 110 million extremely poor Nigerians to participate in the new Nigeria. He stressed further that citizens in the Diaspora in advanced countries were veritable tools for national development, adding that Nigeria should not be an exception.