It’ll be an incurable harm to scrap Information Ministry – Fatimatu Abubakar

The Information Minister-designate, Fatimatu Abubakar, has opposed suggestions to either scrap or merge the Information Ministry with the Ministry of Communications.

During her vetting by the Appointments Committee of Parliament on Friday, March 8, 2024, Fatimatu Abubakar emphasized the importance of maintaining the Information Ministry as a single entity, asserting that it is better suited to perform crucial functions of the state.

She recalled how the ministry was crippled with several challenges when it was merged with the Communications Ministry.

Expressing her stance, she stated “If anything, I am of the view that we should advocate for more allocation and let people know the importance of the ministry. When the ministry was merged at some point in time with the Communications Ministry, if you had been to the Ministry of Information building or the ISD buildings as we have today, the evidence of the struggles of the various agencies under the ministry was not something that we could even have words to explain.”

“It pays that we have a sector ministry that is minded, that despite the fact that the key entities under the ministry are not income-generating, they play a public duty and we need to pay attention to them, it has improved the fortunes under the ministry,” she added.