The members of the National Assembly have urged President Bola Tinubu to provide adequate funds for the operations of the Federal Ministry of Information.
They also made a case for more funds for media agencies under the ministry for them to perform their mandatory jobs of disseminating information and educating Nigerians on the Federal Government’s policies and programmes.
Resolution of the joint committee to seek Presidential attention for adequate funding of the Information and National Orientation Ministry was a sequel to the 2025 budget performance report of the Ministry presented by the Minister, Alhaji Mohammed Idris.
The Minister in the report informed the committee that only N205 million was released from the N2.49billion capital budget of the Ministry in 2025, which, according to him, was not even fully utilised in terms of cash backing.
Apparently irked by the development, the committee hurriedly went into closed door session and resolved to make special appeal to President Bola Tinubu through leadership of the National Assembly for adequate funding of the Ministry and agencies under it like the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA), Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) and Voice of Nigeria (VON).
Explaining the resolution to journalists after the closed-door session, which lasted for about an hour, the Chairman, House Committee on Information, National Orientation, Ethics and Values, Hon Olushola Fatoba, said proposals made for the Ministry in the 2026 budget made it to resolve to reach out to Mr President through the leadership of the National Assembly.
He said, “At the executive session, when we went through the 2026 budget proposal for the Ministry and agencies, we discovered that sums earmarked for personnel and overhead costs for the Ministry in 2025, were the same made for 2026 while the 70% of the capital component rollover from 2025, was the only vote for capital budget of the Ministry in 2026.
“As a joint committee, we therefore unanimously agreed that the budget is not sufficient to run the ministry and agencies.
“We accordingly resolved to meet the leadership of NASS on the meagre budgetary proposal for the Ministry and, of course, planned to reach out to Mr President to ensure that something is urgently done in terms of budgetary provisions for the Ministry and agencies in 202,6 being a very critical year.”
Earlier, before the executive session, the Minister declared that the ministry had, over the last two years, succeeded in rebuilding the broken trust between public office holders and Nigerians.
“When we started in 2023, what we saw was that there was a breakdown in trust between Nigerians and public officials. Whether these officials are elected or appointed, there seems to be some kind of mistrust that Nigerians have about what they do or what they say.
“Therefore, our duty when we came on board was to ensure that will return that trust that Nigerians should have in the public officials through what they say and what they do.
“As Minister of Information and National Orientation, one of the major pillars that I came with is to ensure that we return that trust to public communication so that whatever we say, we say it honestly, truthfully, and in the best interest of Nigerians, which is being tremendously achieved,” he said.
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