• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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FEC hinges Q4’18 economic performance on early release of funds

Buhari-FEC

The Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Wednesday hinged last quarter’s economic growth on early release of funds, saying the statistics recently released by the National Bureau of Statistics show that the economy attained strongest growth in recent times.

Udoma Udo Udoma, minister of Budget and National Planning, told State House correspondents after the weekly FEC meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari that the Council expressed happiness that real GDP grew at 2.38 percent, services sector at 2.99 percent, while agriculture grew at 2.46 percent.

“FEC received the good news that Nigeria’s economy received a positive performance report, with the gross domestic product (GDP) growth at about 2.38 percent in the fourth quarter of 2018. It is very heart-warming that the economy is on the path of growth,” Udoma said.
He attributed the growth to the impact of early release of funds by the Federal Government.
This is as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said it would declare the winner of this Saturday’s presidential election on Wednesday.

INEC assured Nigerians that even with 73 presidential candidates and over 84 million voters, it would announce results of the presidential election the same period as it did in the 2015 general elections.
The electoral umpire had announced the final result of the 2015 presidential election at exactly 2.55 a.m. on Wednesday, April 1, 2015, after days of collation of results from across the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory.
”Let me repeat here that even though this time around we have more presidential candidates than 2015, we have more registered voters than we had in 2015, the size of the result sheet is bigger than we had in 2015, but we are committed to concluding the process for the presidential election roughly around the same time that we concluded the 2015 general elections,” Mahmood Yakubu, INEC chairman, told journalists and election observers in Abuja on Wednesday.

“I understand that there is greater urgency, particularly following the extension and particularly for those who are covering the election so that they do not stay more than is expected for the outcome of the election. We will do whatever we can to speedily conclude the election consistent with the provisions of the law. We won’t sacrifice due process for speed. But, we will make sure we balance speed and what we are supposed to do under the law,” he said.
Yakubu further announced that INEC has delivered election materials to local government areas in 10 states of the federation including Adamawa, Anambra, Benue, Ekiti, Jigawa, Katsina, Osun, Ogun, Oyo and Taraba.

The INEC boss said the commission had reported 95 percent configuration of the Smart Card Readers (SCR) nationwide. The Card Readers were introduced in the 2015 general elections to facilitate the accreditation of voters using the PVCs.

Also briefing State House correspondents after the FEC meeting on Wednesday, Lai Mohammed, minister of Information and Culture, said the Council gave its support to President Buhari’s directives to security agencies to shoot ballot box snatchers at sight ahead of Saturday’s election.

Mohammed said ministers had reviewed the directive at the cabinet meeting and had thrown their support to the directive, adding that anyone who steals the mandate of the people should face the wrath of the law.

“Absolutely, I mean, if you want to intimidate voters to steal the mandate of the people, you should be able to face the wrath of the law,” he said.

President Buhari had on Monday, at the All Progressives Congress (APC) caucus meeting, said he had given directives to security operatives to deal ruthlessly with ballot-box snatchers ahead of the Saturday’s rescheduled election.

FEC backing is coming despite widespread condemnation of the directive by several organisations, including INEC, main opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP), coalition of political parties and civil society organizations.

The meeting was preceded by the swearing-in of eight new permanent secretaries representing Delta, Osun, Borno, Adamawa, Lagos, Nasarawa, Edo and Imo States.

Tony Ailemen & James Kwen, Abuja