Lai Mohammed returns, charges staff: Let’s work hard to justify Mr. President’s confidence

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has

charged the management and staff of the Federal Ministry of

Information and Culture to work harder to justify the confidence of

President Muhammadu Buhari.

 

The Minister, who made the remarks in Abuja on Wednesday at his

inaugural meeting with the Permanent Secretary and directors of the

ministry immediately after he was sworn in by the President, said his

re-appointment and subsequent posting to the ministry is a mark of

confidence reposed in him by the President.

 

“My charge to all of us is to please redouble our effort so that we

can justify the confidence Mr. President has reposed in us. That Mr.

President has reappointed and posted me back to this ministry is a

measure of the confidence he has in me. So I think we all need to work

hard.

 

“Let me express my joy at the prospect of working again with the

Directors that I worked with in the last administration. Whatever

success we had achieved was because of the cooperation and

collaboration of Directors who worked with us,” he said.

 

Alhaji Mohammed said he would continue to work very closely with the

Permanent Secretary and the Directors in order to implement the core

mandate of the ministry.

 

“There must be synergy between the Minister and the Permanent

Secretary and I must say that I have enjoyed very cordial working

relationship with my Permanent Secretary, and I am very glad that that

relationship contributed in no small measure to the moderate success

we achieved. We need your cooperation because we can’t do it alone,”

he said.

 

The Minister also thanked the Media team that worked with him in the

past four years, saying the team did a lot to publicize the activities

of the ministry.

 

In her remarks, the Permanent Secretary, Deaconess Grace Isu-Gekpe,

expressed delight at the reappointment of Alhaji Mohammed and pledged

the readiness of the management and staff of the ministry to support

and cooperate with the Minister to enable him achieve his mandate.

 

“It’s actually been my desire to have you back sir. We are all very

glad to have you back to continue where you stopped. There is a lot of

work here and I believe that you will surely take this ministry to the

next level.

 

“I want to say welcome back to your family and all of us are ready to

work with you to take this ministry and the whole nation, in areas of

information and Culture, to the next level,” she said.