Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has said that President Muhammadu Buhari’s foreign trips are aimed at rallying support for war against terrorism and the administration’s economic policies.
In a statement issued on Friday in Abuja, the Minister said all the trips have started yielding fruits.
He said “Nigerians, whether in the ruling or the opposition parties, have a right to ask questions about the activities of their President, but it is absolutely important that they do so from an informed, rather than partisan or sensational, standpoint.
”He was in Germany at the invitation of the G7 to solicit support from the Industrialized Nations for the war against terrorism. No one who has witnessed the killings and maiming in the past seven years by Boko Haram will call such trips frivolous. After all, the security and welfare of the citizens are the reason for the existence of any government.
”The President’s visit to South Africa was to attend the regular summit of the African Union; the trip to Ghana was aimed at fostering better relations with a brotherly country; the trip to India was for the India-Africa summit that provided the opportunity to explore ways of enhancing Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) from Indian investors, while the trip to Iran was to attend the forum of Gas Exporting Countries, a veritable platform for discussing how to better harness Nigeria’s abundant gas resources for industrial/domestic consumption and export, at a time of dwindling oil prices.
”The President also travelled to Malta to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, from where he travelled to Paris for the UN Conference on Climate Change. The President’s second trip to South Africa since assuming office is for the China-Africa forum. On the fewoccasions that the President has embarked on a State Visit, he has tied that to an agenda that will further the quest for support for the war against terror and the efforts to enhance FDIs, thus stimulating economic growth and creating jobs.”