The Federal Government has denied media reports that Ministers who were invited to the US-Nigeria Investment Summit in Washington, DC, United States of America on April 19, 2018 shunned the forum.
The position of the government was contained in a statement issued in London on Monday by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.
Mohammed also said most of the Ministers who were slated to attend the event were not invited and were not in Washington, DC at the time, hence the insinuation that some Ministers collected estacodes without attending the forum is baseless.
He said the Ministers of Agriculture; Power Works and Housing; and Budget and National Planning did not get any invitation from the organizers, though they were listed among those who were expected to attend.
Mohammed said the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, who was invited, was with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London at the time of the summit, while the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, who was in Washington, DC at the time, was there purposely to attend the 2018 Spring Meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
He said though he (Minister of Information and Culture) was invited to the forum, he wrote back to inform the organizers that he would not be able to make the trip due to conflicting schedules.
Mohammed added: “It is clear from the foregoing that no Minister shunned the US Investment Summit and that the reports being circulated in that regard are bereft of facts.”
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