Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said that the administration was on the right path in improving Nigeria’s business environment and diversifying the economy.
Osinbajo made the submission in an interview with the Financial Times, where he also said that the federal government’s investment in infrastructure would improve local manufacturing capacity, according to a script of the interview released by Mr. Laolu Akande, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity.
Osinbajo said that there had been a lot of damage to the environment in terms of business and others, but effecting the correction would take a while.
He said that the administration is barely three years old, but is focused on doing the right thing.
“The moment you have the right people and you put the right structures in place, you can do a lot, and I think we have been blessed with an incredibly good team.
“We wanted us to be much farther ahead in terms of manufacturing. But a lot of these things are also infrastructure constraints that cannot be developed overnight, which explains why we are investing heavily in infrastructure.
“We focus a great deal on diversifying; agriculture, manufacturing; we’ve focused on trying to diversify as much as possible, and we think that that is the path to go. There is no other way of doing this.
“And if you look at the figures, there has been tremendous improvement, even export of raw materials, agriculture produce, even manufacturing has improved. I think that we are on the right path. I am convinced that we are going to stay the course.”
Akande reproduced the interview conducted by Mr David Pilling, the Africa Editor of Financial Times on Thursday, May 31 at Eko Hotels and Suites.
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