Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has criticized the governments of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, late Umar Musa Yar’adua and Dr. Goouck Jonathan of allowing poverty to grow in direct opposite to the sharp rise in the nation’s incomes in the last 16 years.
Osinbajo said, at the ongoing 45th Annual Accounting Conference of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) today in Abuja, that despite the fact that Nigeria recorded high oil prices, it had not translated into equal rise in the reduction of the number of poor people in the country.
According to him, the steady rise in the GDP and foreign reserves during the last three presidencies of Obasanjo, Yar’adua and Jonathan have not improved employment generation, instead, it has been rising at the same time.
This, Professor Osinbajo said, has showed clearly that such figures, including a rise in revenue by itself does not create jobs or had significantly put a dent to poverty levels in the country.
The Vice President who spoke on “Repositioning Nigeria for Sustainable Development: From Rhetoric to Performance,” observed that there were seemingly good growth figures, but that such figures could be deceptive where the structure and quality of growth are not considered.
“So why are most (of our people) poor despite rising revenues and GDP growth? Our main revenue earners, the extractive oil and gas economy, do not by themselves create many jobs.”
He described the situation as an “irony of a top-down economic model, when the major revenue earner is extractive and the value chain is poorly developed.”
Professor Osinbajo called for social sector investment in the people, education, job creation, national school feeding scheme, conditional cash transfer and reflating economies of the States which he said are the indices that would boost the economy.
According to him, President Muhammadu Nuhari has already put some of these ideas in place, adding that they include the bailout package for the workers in the country, and some others that are currently being worked out.
The Vice President reiterated that education is the basics for economic development, adding: “One of the most important interventions required in the education sector is capacity building to improve teacher quality. This programme is intended to drive teacher capacity development; boost basic education; attract talents to the teaching profession. Better educated population increase economic potential for productivity.”
He said that the All Peoples Congress (APC) has made a commitment to provide one-meal-a day for all primary school students thereby creating jobs in agriculture, including poultry, catering and delivery services.
The multiplier effects of the introduction of the scheme, he added, include 1.14 million new jobs; increased food production of up to 530,000 metric tonnes per/annum; attracting investor by investment of up to N980 billion.
Professor Osinbajo also identified conditional cash transfer as another avenue for alleviating poverty, adding that the programme is intended to support the 25 million poorest households to incentivize vaccination, education and production.
The multiplier effects of the introduction of the programme, he noted, would include: lifting millions out of poverty; putting millions into rural production; and boosting rural economy.
The Vice President said that government needs to improve the power sector to have one-Stop Shop for approvals; innovation and fighting piracy; diversifies the economy in agriculture – self-sufficiency in rice and wheat (staples) production, manufacturing, entertainment and technology.
On the power sector, he said that despite the challenges, there have been measurable improvements over the past three months, saying that the 26 percent increase in operational generation capacity from June to August 15, 2015 compared to January to May 2015; decreased in pipeline vandalism boosting gas supply and that a 10 percent reduction in transmission losses (June to July 2015 compared to January to May 2015); reduction in red tape to remove delays blocking the 450MW Azura-Edo IPP and the 500MW Exxon Mobil Qua-Iboe IPP; the imposition of a September 2015 deadline for the submission of the DisCos’ revised tariff trajectories.
Earlier, the President of ICAN, Otunba Samuel Olufemi Deru, appreciated the Vice President for his commitment and being able to attend the programme in person. [myad]
