Don’t Slash My Budget, Lai Mohamed Begs House

By Uche Mbah

Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information and Culture, has decried inadequate funding for digitization which he insists may cause Nigeria to lose important historical records.

Appearing before the House of Representatives Monday, Mohammed said the Information Ministry is underfunded, and valuable information may be lost.

The Ministry proposed a total budget of N67,741,989,960.

The Minister begged the House Committee on Appropriation not to slash his budget.

“We had an exhibition and I had to take the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Mr. Boss Mustapha, to our office in Radio House to see the need for urgent digitization of the records.

“The danger is that, if I need N1 million to digitize and you give me N200,000 what can I do? Year in, year out, we roll it over. Meanwhile, we are losing these documents by the day.

“There are some pictures that we need to preserve for our grandchildren. If we are unlucky to have floods or rains or fire disasters or termites eat up some of these valuable records, it will not be good for us.

“If we get the timely release of money that we need for the project, it will save us of all these.Very soon, we will be going to the UK to get information about us.”

In his own words, Olusegun Odebunmi, Chairman of the Committee, said the matter will be presented before the Presidency.

“I don’t know why the Ministry of Information is being underfunded and I see some State Ministries being funded more than a whole Federal Ministry,” Odebunmi said.

“We need to make an official report on this matter to the House. If we don’t need the services of the Ministry of Information again, we should close it.”