Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Wednesday gave reasons why poverty remain high despite Nigeria’s rising oil prices, Gross Domestic Products and foreign reserves during the previous administrations of Olusegun Obasanjo, late Umaru Yar’adua and Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.
Corruption, lack of transparency, and unstable power supply, he said are the major factors responsible.
He made the remark while speaking at the ongoing 45th Annual Accounting Conference of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) in Abuja.
The theme of his lecture was: “Repositioning Nigeria for Sustainable Development: From Rhetoric to Performance.”
Although there are good growth figures, the vice president explained that such figures can be deceptive where the structure and quality of growth are not considered.
According to a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Laolu Akande, Osinbajo said: “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 said that such is the irony of a top-down economic model, when the major revenue earner is extractive and the value chain is poorly developed.
Identifying the way forward from the present economic challenges, after making a comparative analysis of the previous administrations, the vice president called for social sector investment, investing in the people, education, job creation, national school feeding scheme, conditional cash transfer and reflating economies of the states as indices that would boost the economy.
He said some of the ideas have already been put in place by the current administration, including the bailout package for the workers in the country, and others currently being worked out.
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