Idris Hold Your Govs Responsible for Poor Performance

Laleye Dipo in Minna

With the campaign for the 2027 general election fast approaching, Minister of Information and National Orientation, Alhaji Mohammed Idris, has told Nigerians to hold their state governors accountable for poor delivery of dividends of democracy. Idris said his charge became necessary because states and local governments had been receiving increased money from the federation account since President Bola Tinubu assumed office in 2023.

Speaking on the side-lines of the 34th Convocation of the Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State, the minister said the states and local governments should be complementing the developments being provided across the country by the federal government.

Idris specifically told the governors, “To retrace your steps go back to the drawing boards to give your people dividends of democracy.”

He stated that any state governor, who did not take advantage of the federal government’s current reforms to plan for the sustainable development of their state, would be deemed to have “deliberately denied the citizens of their states the needed growth and progress”.

He said governors should also “stop blaming the president”.

At the federal level, Idris insisted that Tinubu had carried out various reforms that changed the political and economic landscape of the country. He said international agencies and foreign governments had attested to this.

The minister maintained that the Tinubu administration had gone the extra mile to send a strong message that the opportunities created were open and available to all Nigerian’s, regardless of agenda, age, creed, ethnicity, tongue, or region.

Earlier, while delivering the convocation lecture of the university, titled, “Youth and Nation Building: Navigating Opportunities in an Era of National Reforms,” the minister charged youths to embrace the various reforms introduced by Tinubu, especially in the education sector, to empower themselves.

He stated that the reforms were creating massive waves of opportunity in every sector, resulting in young Nigerians emerging among the biggest beneficiaries of the new array of opportunities.

The minister asserted, “The biggest and most visible opportunities created for young Nigerians in the last two years include low-cost, long-term financing for students of higher institutions through the National Education Loan Fund (NELFUND).”

He added that since its launch in May 2024, NELFUND had received almost 1.5 million applications, with more than 900,000 beneficiaries, and still counting.

Idris added that over N174 billion had so far been disbursed as tuition fees and monthly upkeep allowances, stressing that through NELFUND, “We have incontrovertible proof that the president’s Renewed Hope Agenda is real, functional, impactful, and transformational.”

Over 5,000 students graduated from the university, with 111 of them bagging First Class.