Information minister Mohammed Idris has defended rising fuel prices, describing escalating energy costs as a global challenge.

Mr Idris said this on Monday during a media chat with senior editors and journalists in Abuja.

“Rising energy costs are a global challenge, and governments across the world are adopting different approaches to protect their economies and cushion the impact on citizens,” he said.

He said President Bola Tinubu’s government remained mindful of the pressures higher energy costs placed on households, businesses and the wider economy.

“President Bola Tinubu remains firmly committed to the economic reforms that are strengthening our country, while ensuring that the welfare of Nigerians remains paramount,” Mr Idris said.

According to him, the government is consolidating reform gains, expanding affordable energy alternatives, strengthening domestic production and creating conditions for sustainable reductions in living costs.

He said Mr Tinubu understood the challenges Nigerians faced and remained determined to translate economic recovery into greater affordability, improved purchasing power and better living conditions.

Mr Idris said the achievements of the Renewed Hope Agenda over the past three years were evident across the administration’s Eight Presidential Priority Areas. He listed the priorities as economic reforms for sustained and inclusive growth, strengthened national security, improved agriculture and food security, and the unlocking of energy and natural resources.

Others, he said, included expanding infrastructure and transportation, improving education, healthcare and social investment, and accelerating diversification through industrialisation, digitisation and innovation.

He also identified improved governance and effective service delivery as key priorities, describing the initiatives as interconnected components of national transformation.

“These are not isolated achievements. They represent a deliberate and interconnected programme of national transformation,” the minister said.

On security, Idris said the government would neither relent nor retreat in its determination to secure every part of the country.

“Let me assure Nigerians that the federal government will neither relent nor retreat in its determination to secure every part of our country,” he said.

Mr Idris explained that the president continued to demand results from security leaders, adding that investments in personnel, technology, intelligence and operational capabilities were aimed at achieving lasting security.

“The security of Nigerians is not negotiable,” Mr Idris said, pledging continued protection for vulnerable communities.

He said the government remained committed to ensuring that Nigerians could live, travel, farm, trade and work safely across the country.

(NAN)