Our government has failed to improve the lives of Nigerians — Osinbajo admits

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said the Buhari administration has been unable to improve the overall well-being of Nigerians since coming to power in 2015.

Osinbajo who made the affirmation during the end of the 19 Joint Planning Board (JPB) meeting with the topic "Public Development Planning in Nigeria: Issues and Challenges," in Abuja on Friday, said improving the existences of Nigerians has been be at the core of strategy of the Buhari organization, yet censured helpless execution for helpless results.

“To be meaningful, our planning processes must lead to tangible outcomes in the form of growth that exceeds population growth, real growth in the sense of growth which creates jobs, opportunities and circumstances for the well-being of the people,” Osinbajo said.

He said that it was important when drawing up national plans to take account of the interests of the more vulnerable members of the society.

“This is why social investment and social protection are at the heart of the Buhari Administration’s policy interventions.

“Indeed, top of mind for Mr President is how to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in this decade as we radically re-engineer the productive base of our economy in agriculture, manufacturing, mining and the digital and creative sectors.”

The Vice President said that priorities for planning are the structural transformation of the economy from low value-adding activities to high value-adding activities and increased job opportunities for our huge youth population.

According to him, sometimes the implementation failures were due to resource and capacity constraints, but we must also ponder on the possibility that our plans might in some cases, not realistic and not grounded in our objective reality.

“ In other words, is the lack of implementation due to the fact that our visions and plans have been unduly fanciful.”

The meeting that started on Wednesday was organised by the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, in collaboration with states ministries of budget, economic planning and other relevant stakeholders.