President Muhammadu Buhari while attending a town hall meeting with traditional rulers, youths, students, organised labour, market women and other stakeholders on the #EndSARS protests and its aftermath on Friday appealed to Nigerians who are yet to feel the impact of his government and those who think the government is not doing enough to bear with him. The Kwara state meeting hosted in Ilorin by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed was attended by the state Governor Abdulrazaq Abdulrahman. Speaker of the state House of Assembly Hon. Yakubu Danladi, Emir of Ilorin, HRH Sulu Gambari and other traditional rulers, representatives of market women, traders and other stakeholders attended the event. In the President message delivered by the minister, he said the Administration has the interest of the youths and the people in general at heart and has been doing a lot to touch their lives. The president said the government is constraint by the dwindling resources occasioned by the impact of COVID 19 which also affected the global economy.
“If we have not done enough or we have not touch everybody, we appeal that you please bear with us.
“In the first instance, what we have is less than 60 per cent of the revenue that was available to other governments that came before us.
“We all know what we suffered during COVID 19, and as we are just trying to recover from this we also face another crisis.
“We appeal that you should please assist the government and be patient. “This government is dedicated to serving the people and we will continue to try our best to do so.
“I thank you all for your perseverance, understanding and patience’, he said.
The president said the administration has many initiatives targeted at making jobs available for the youths and alleviating poverty among women and vulnerable groups. He said the government initiated N75 billion National Youth Investment Fund (NYIF) aimed at providing opportunities for the youths.
The president added that the Fund is part of the N2.3 trillion Economic Sustainability Plan to cushion the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on most vulnerable Micro Small Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) across the country.
NAN