FG Orders Projects’ Tour, Media Talks

Ahead of the one year anniversary celebration of President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Wednesday approved ministerial media dialogue and physical tour of major Federal Government projects nationwide.

Minister of Information, Labaran Maku disclosed this after the Council meeting, which was presided over by Vice President Namadi Sambo at the State House.

Sambo presided over the meeting on behalf of President Jonathan, who is in Germany for a state visit.

Briefing the State House correspondents after the meeting, Maku said that the essence of the media dialogue and the projects’ tour was for government to give accounts of what it had been able to achieve in one year.

“Let me use this opportunity to inform Nigerians that a lot of the works that we have been given in the Council have been going on in the field.

“From next week, we are engaging every Ministry in a dialogue with Nigerians on what have been achieved.

“Now, we take this as very important because I believe that democracy is about accountability.

“It is about explaining what we are doing and this is also part of the process of carrying Nigerians along and let them know what is going on in the field, let them ask questions if there are questions to be asked.

“And this will also enable the government to really prove to the people, doubting Thomas, that indeed, in this one year of this administration, a lot of work has been going on and we now want to show the evidence to the people of Nigeria as to the nature of work and what is going on in the field.

“In addition to this, we have also designed a programme to tour projects physically, this will take place from June.’’

Maku said both events would be coordinated by his ministry in collaboration with other Federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies.

He said the media dialogue would start next week and feature Ministers who would hold conversation with Nigerians on the achievements of their respective ministries.

The minister said that the Federal Government had taken steps to approve a draft policy on the establishment of a Central Data Centre for government agencies.

He said the proposed data base system was expected to provide a single data base for all government agencies to reduce cost of governance.

Maku said the draft policy was submitted to Council by the Minister of Telecommunication Technology, Mrs Omobola Johnson.

“Currently, we have a data base that is maintained by the FRSC, INEC, Federal Inland Revenue Service and the National Identity Card Management Commission.

“We also have banks keeping their own data base for their clients across the country and this is not supposed to be so.

“We need a co-ordination such that the nation can develop one data base and different agencies can subscribe to it.’’

Maku said that the data base would serve as a ‘One stop shop” for information gathering that could serve all the agencies.

According to him, FEC reviewed the outcome of the recently held National Council on Education, adding that Council agreed that after years of implementation of the Nomadic Education Programme at the primary level, there was need for special Secondary Schools for such categories of students.