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VP Osinbajo admits Nigeria still far behind in poverty eradication
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has admitted that the country is far behind in the race to eradicate poverty.
He added that the reason for this was that there were no systematic and focused approaches to eradicating poverty in Nigeria.
Osinbajo made this comment while speaking at the second Abiola Ajimobi roundtable programme to mark the 70th birthday of the former governor of Oyo State.
He delivered a speech on the topic: “Managing the Dynamics of Nigeria’s Advancement: The Socio-Economic options.”
He said “there are two issues and I’m glad that by the response of discussants, the two issues stood out. One is the environment for local and foreign investments and second is eradicating poverty.”
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“It’s very obvious that we are behind the race in eradicating poverty. The reason being that before now, there were no systematic and focused approach to eradicating poverty in our country. This is why from 2014-2015, the APC decided to write social investment into our manifestos.
“So, the social investment we are talking about is not by accident. It’s a comprehensive programme to tackle poverty. It’s a detailed programme and the first of its kind anywhere in Africa. The programme is very seriously scrutinized by the World Bank and as a matter of fact, the World Bank is a collaborator.”
“Till date, that school feeding programme accounts for feeding of over 9.9 million pupils in 33 states and we are going to 36 states. 540,000 people are being paid monthly. Of course, it’s not a perfect programme but it’s the first pragmatic approach to tackling poverty”.
“That’s what countries with a large population of the poor did and today it has taken a large number out of poverty. It’s very important to bear in mind that we are at the first stage of the programme and we will do a lot more,” he said.
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