Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo has said the focus of the APC Federal Government is to take Nigerians out of poverty.
He said all government programmes and projects were geared towards achieving that objective.
According to a statement on Wednesday by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mr Laolu Akande, the Vice President spoke during a town hall meeting held in the Bariga/Somolu Local Council Development Area, Lagos State to felicitate with Lagosians on the Eid-el-Kabir celebration on Tuesday,
Osinbajo said the government was targeting the poor.
He said, “I want to emphasise that everything we are doing, our focus, first of all, is to ensure that people are taken out of poverty. Our country is very big; over 200 million people, many young people coming out every day. Aside from that, we also want to ensure that anybody who is doing anything at all, who is trading, artisans, mechanics; we are able to support them.
“The reason is that when you look at the way government operated in the past; when you look at the government budget, it focuses on the middle-class, those who have industries and manufacturing plants, and those kinds of people.
“But the majority is at a very low level, doing little things. Those are the people that we must first of all (focus on) so that the poorest are able to do better. If the poorest do better, it would be better for all of us.”
Osinbajo explained that the administration’s National Social Investment Programmes were geared towards improving the welfare of ordinary Nigerians.”
He added, “The President’s focus has always been on the common man. So, when we came, we decided on a few things to tackle youth unemployment. First, the N-Power programme to engage as many young people who are graduates as possible.
“We started with 200,000, and just this month, we have employed another 300,000. So, in our N-Power programme, we have 500,000 young graduates who are employed in the programme. Now every local government in Nigeria has N-Power graduates,” he added.
The Vice President noted that the present administration has been able to embark on the completion of more projects and achieve more with less funds because of Buhari’s honesty and the seriousness of the administration to improve the country’s fortunes.
He said, “In the past four years of the previous administration, over $393bn was earned in oil proceeds alone. In the past three years, we have earned $94bn, look at the difference. And the reasons are very straightforward. The price of oil was about half of what it used to be. But with the same $94bn, we have been able to do far more.
“When we got into office, 24 states had not paid salaries for over six months and we ensured that these salaries were paid. And President Buhari said then, ‘Look, I have been a salary earner all my life, I have never done any business; the only thing I ever done is government work, either as a soldier or in government. I cannot imagine how anybody can go to sleep as a governor without paying the salaries of his workers.’
“So, we made sure that we paid salaries and we have done so many other things.”
Osinbajo said the administration would continue to support petty traders and small businesses to ensure that more Nigerians are taken out of poverty.
He said, “The other thing we have done is GEEP (Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme), a micro-credit scheme for market women and others.
“We are doing one now for petty traders that is called TraderMoni. We have done it in Lagos we are going to do at least 100,000 in Lagos and two million across the country. The traders here in Bariga must benefit from it. We also have the one for people far bigger than that which is called GEEP.”
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