Vice President Yemi Osinbajo says developing human capital and building up Nigeria’s infrastructural backbone in a sustainable manner is certainly doable, especially with a sense of urgency.
The vice president said that all the tiers of government and critical partners ought to be focused, open-minded and collaborative in meeting shared aspirations, providing better and fuller lives and decent jobs for Nigerians, especially the youths.
Osinbajo’s spokesman, Laolu Akande, in a statement on Thursday in Abuja while virtually declaring open the 20th meeting of the Joint Planning Board and the National Council on Development Planning holding in Maiduguri, Borno.
Members of the board and council are drawn from the Federal Government and Economic Planning Commissioners from state governments.
Osinbajo, who spoke mainly on the COVID – 19 pandemic, security, climate change, education, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), said that the issues required deliberate policy responses and deserved the attention of economic managers.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has had a unique and devastating impact on our health, economic systems, and social life.
” For a vibrant and enterprising people like ours, the whole experience of lockdowns and social distancing have been quite trying, while economic difficulties made existing socio-economic conditions even harder.
“The Federal Government responded by way of the Economic Sustainability Plan (ESP) which focused on saving and creating businesses and jobs while boosting local production.
“Thus we had the very impactful MSME Survival Fund, the Agriculture for Food and Jobs, Mass Housing, the Rapid Response Register and the SolarPowerNaija Programmes amongst other things.
“It can be said that the ESP worked in the sense that the economy recovered quite early from the recession occasioned by the pandemic but it must also be said that we are not yet out of the woods.”
According to him, some people have described the current wave as a pandemic of the un-vaccinated in the sense that it is people who have not been vaccinated in developed economies that are most seriously affected.
He said that as economic managers, stakeholders were faced with two related challenges that might hinder return full to economic activity.
“First we must find the resources to procure and administer sufficient quantities of COVID-19 vaccines and actively encourage our people to get vaccinated to enable us as a country to reach herd immunity.
“Secondly, we must ponder on ways and means of restoring and boosting local capacity to produce vaccinations not only for COVID-19 but for the other diseases that continue to stalk the land.”
On climate change, Osinbajo restated his earlier calls for a just transition to net-zero emission as Africa had contributed least to global warming but was expected to suffer the most from its consequences.
According to him, global efforts to tackle climate change and ensure environmental sustainability will challenge us here in Nigeria in a number of ways.
“Quite evidently, the global drive to reduce the use of fossil fuels to mitigate the rise in global temperature will reduce demand for fossil fuels.
”This will affect us because of our dependence on oil and gas for revenues and foreign exchange earnings. We just have to find alternative sources.”
On security, the vice president said the Federal Government had over the past few years invested huge resources in equipment and human resources.
He said that the emphasis for stakeholders including economic planners must be on effective synergies with the federal government.
Osinbajo submitted that with adept planning, Nigeria could leapfrog into the digital age.
“There are those who wonder how a country like Nigeria will cope with the 4th Industrial Revolution given that we have struggled to catch up with the 2nd and 3rd Industrial Revolutions.
“But the answer is simple: education, education, education, especially basic education.
“It is scandalous for us to be dealing with out-of-school children.
“We must put resources into education; today we have no choice but to focus on relevant education; education that will prepare our young people for 21st-century jobs and opportunities.
“At the same time, we must find the resources to invest in technology and related broadband infrastructure if we are to help the budding technology ecosystem in our country to continue to excel,” he said.
On the $500 million Innovation Fund, he said the federal government was working with the African Development Bank to launch the Nigerian Innovation Programme which would be backed by $500 million dollars to support the technology and creative sectors of the economy.
The vice president said that AfCFTA was another development with great promise for Nigeria’s economic prospects but one for which we have to be well prepared.
Osinbajo also commended Gov. Babagana Zulum of Borno and acknowledged the great strides that he had been making.
Earlier in his remarks, Zulum said hosting the annual meeting of economic planners across the country afforded the state the opportunity to showcase its efforts across different sectors aimed at improving the lives of the people.
