SPEECH BY THE HONOURABLE MINISTER OF INFORMATION AND NATIONAL ORIENTATION, MOHAMMED IDRIS, fnipr, AT THE SIXTH EDITION OF THE 2025 MINISTERIAL PRESS BRIEFING SERIES, AT THE NATIONAL PRESS CENTER, RADIO HOUSE, ABUJA, ON THURSDAY, APRIL 17, 2025.

Protocol.

I welcome you to this sixth edition of the 2025 Ministerial Press Briefing Series, featuring the Honourable Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu.

Since we kicked off the 2025 series in February, we have hosted Ministers representing a total of seven Ministries, providing first-hand facts and figures to Nigerians at home and abroad, on the policies programmes of the Renewed Hope administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Today will not be any different – I have no doubt that you will hear a lot about the impressive efforts of the administration in advancing electricity access and affordability across the country. For President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, electricity is pivotal to the administration’s major goal of industrialising Nigeria for jobs, skills, exports and prosperity.

As is our tradition here, this briefing is being broadcast live across digital and traditional platforms, and you will have the opportunity to out forward your questions to the Honourable Minister.

My request to all the representatives of the media present here, and those joining virtually, remains the same: I urge you to report accurately and without recourse to sensationalism. We owe it to Nigerians to present the news to them with every sense of professionalism and responsibility, with the intention of informing and educating.

The media will always be powerful stakeholders in nation-building and democratic evolution, and for us as a government, we will continue to accord you all the necessary respect and support.

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,

Before I close, let me use this opportunity to reiterate to our friends and colleagues in the fourth estate of the realm, our commitment to a modern and thriving media industry in Nigeria. I have recently returned from a trip that took me first to the American National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Conference and Workshop, in Las Vegas, under the theme “The Technology, The Trend, The Future.”

I was accompanied on that trip by the heads of agencies under the Federal Ministry of Information and National Orientation, and we were able to hold several successful meetings and forge valuable partnerships aimed at strengthening the technical and technological capacity of Nigeria’s broadcasting sector – partnerships that the media industry will undoubtedly benefit from.

Following that, I was in Paris, France for the Nigerian Business Forum hosted by the French government’s Business France enterprise. On the sidelines of that Forum, I met with executives of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), to further finetune the imminent take-off of a first-of-its-kind Media and Information Literacy Institute that Nigeria will be hosting, here in Abuja. That Institute will go a long way towards strengthening Nigeria’s media environment, and supporting journalists to carry out their functions even more effectively.

I have shared these to reaffirm the commitment of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration towards the lasting transformation of Nigeria’s media landscape. It is that unwavering commitment that is equally fuelling interventions like this Ministerial Press Briefing Series, as well as our Town Hall Meetings, which we will take to every part of the country in due course.

On that note, let me invite my brother, the Honourable Minister of Power, to take the floor and make his presentation for the next twenty minutes, after which we will take the Q&A session.

I thank you for listening, and God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Mohammed Idris, fnipr
Minister of Information and National Orientation
Abuja, Nigeria
17 April 2025