COVID-19: Nigeria Defied Global Predictions- President Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari says Nigeria’s resilience and ‘never say die’ spirit helped her to defy global predictions of the drastic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic when it broke out three years ago.

He made the remark on Saturday, in a nationwide broadcast as Nigeria commemorates her 62^nd independence anniversary.

According to President Buhari: “As you are aware, Nigeria was one of the countries that defied global predictions of the socio-economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic because of our resilience, commitment and passion with which we individually and collectively managed the pandemic.”

Climate Change

Similarly, the President said his administration also gave adequate attention to climate change and ecological issues.

“This administration embarked on addressing critical ecological challenges across the country in order to mitigate the impact of climate change manifesting in the form of flood, soil erosion, desertification, air pollution, amongst others,” he said.

President Buhari pledged to sustain the provision of critical infrastructure, in order to boost Nigeria’s economy and impact positively on the lives of citizens.

“We will continue to ensure that our infrastructure drive remains the key to Nigeria’s economic growth and for which every Nigerian will feel the impact.

“The Nigerian government is already expanding port operations to ensure that they provide opportunities for the growth of the Nigerian economy. We have also continued to accelerate our infrastructure development through serviceable and transparent borrowing, improved capital inflow and increased revenue generation by expanding the tax bases and prudent management of investment proceeds in the sovereign wealth fund.

“To further open up our communities to economic activities, we have continued to boost our railway infrastructure with the completion of a good number of critical railways and at the same time rehabilitating as well as upgrading obsolete equipment,” the President stated.

He also said his administration has maintained its focus on reducing poverty and employment generation by intervening directly through its social investment programmes.