The Senate, on Tuesday, commended the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Alhaji Mohammed Idris, for his giant strides in the management and dissemination of information on government policies and programmes.
Members of the Senate Committee on Information gave the commendation when the minister appeared before the committee to defend his ministry’s 2025 budgetary estimates.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that members of the committee took turns to speak on what they described as the sterling performance of the ministry and its agencies.
The senators also decried the inadequate budgetary envelope of the ministry.
Consequently, the committee sought for a special intervention for the ministry to enable it to execute its mandate of dissemination of information on government policies and programmes.
It rejected the budgetary envelope earmarked for the ministry in 2025 on grounds that it was inadequate to prosecute the important mandate of the ministry.
First to commend the minister for his giant strides and sterling performance on information management was Sen. Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan (PDP-Kogi).
Akpoti-Uduaghan said that the ministry’s budgetary proposal was grossly inadequate, saying that there was no way it could achieve its ambitious plans with such.
She said that the ministry required a special intervention, saying that the minister and his team were ready to work but required adequate funding.
The senator said a similar ministry of information in South Africa received an equivalent of N409 billion to execute its programmes, saying that Nigeria with a higher population should budget more funds for its information dissemination programmes.
She advised the minister to widen the scope of the ministry, particularly in the re-orientation of values of Nigerians, especially the youth.
Sen. Abdul Ningi (PDP-Bauchi) also commended the minister for his show of professionalism since his assumption of office.
Ningi said that the minister, in the discharge of its duties, had shown that he was indeed the spokesperson of the government, and not of the ruling party.
He said that the ministry had improved tremendously in the dissemination of information on government policies and programmes.
The senator commended the leadership traits of the minister which, he said, had visibly manifested in the transformations and improvement on the agencies under the ministry.
He said that the minister’s efforts had resulted in improved transmission by Nigeria Television Authority (NTA), one of the parastatals under the ministry.
Ningi also advised the minister to ensure that the agencies under his ministry evolved measures to become competitive, given the changing perspectives in the media space.
He said that the National Assembly Assembly must find a way of ensuring that the ministry and its agencies compete favourably with their peers elsewhere, saying that ‘information is key to government’s success.
Chairman of the Committee, Sen. Ken Eze (APC-Ebonyi), stressed the need for the ministry to also think outside the box to generate fund.
“You can do very little without revenue and information is very sensitive: we need the sector to drive the policies and programmes of the government.
“The budget before us is nothing to write home about, given what are being done in other climes.
“We need to speak as lawmakers; we need to reject the budget by calling for an increase of the ministry’s budgetary proposal.
“Let the minister of budget and national planning appear before us for a further review of the budget,” he said.
The minister had earlier in his response to a question from Akpoti-Uduaghan on what would be the minimum amount required to ensure effective running of the ministry, put the figure at N50 billion. (NAN)
