“Nigerians have seen promised ‘change'” – Osinbajo
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said that President Muhammadu Buhari-led government has made positive changes in the lives of the people.
Osinbajo, in a statement made available to Neusroom Monday morning by his media spokesperson, Laolu Akande, said the administration’s Social Investment Programmes have improved livelihoods nationwide.
The VP was a guest at the 2018 Annual Lecture of the Barewa Old Boys Association in Sokoto on Saturday.
He said the government of the day has ensured that displaced residents in the North return to their homes after Boko Haram invasion.
“Today, if we ask our brothers and sisters in the North East, who watched Boko Haram seize 14 local governments as of 2014; saw schools and major roads closed; and who could not celebrate Sallah or Christmas for many years, then perhaps, we will find that they will say that they have seen some changes,” Osinbajo said.
“Or if we were to ask the farmers who are enjoying the credit support and Agric inputs made available by the Anchor Borrowers Programme, and getting a more stable supply of fertilizer because of the Presidential Fertilizer Initiative, and also getting it at significantly cheaper prices, perhaps they might say that there have been some changes.
“Or if we were to ask the 500,000 graduates who have been employed under the N-Power programme, and this N-Power programme is a direct government employment, and they are trained, using a tablet such as the one that I am holding, in various entrepreneurial skills, including code writing and all that, to be useful to themselves even after the programme, perhaps, they might say that they have seen some changes.
“If we ask the pensioners – Nigeria Airways staff, Delta Steel Company staff, Ex-Biafra Police Officers, etc. – who before now received no form of pension after several years of abandonment, but are now getting paid; perhaps, they might say that they have seen some change.
“And the petty traders who are getting microcredit from the Federal Government, many of them, (we are doing 2 million), they were long ignored, no one ever paid attention to the poorest of our people in the value chain. Today, they are getting some attention, they are opening bank accounts to save money. If you ask them, perhaps, they might say, they have seen some change.”
He also hailed the FG’s school feeding programme as positively driving children’s interest in education in the country.
“Better still, if we were to ask the 9.2 million schoolchildren and their parents in 48,000 schools in 26 States nationwide, who are eating one meal a day, perhaps, they may say, they have seen some change,” he said.
“The 297,000 indigent Nigerians in 20 States are now receiving monthly stipends under the Conditional Cash Transfer Programme, each of those beneficiaries would argue that there is change.
“Ask the contractors who have returned to site since 2016, because our budget for roads has grown 20-fold since then. Ask the artisans and labourers who have found jobs on all the many road, rail, power and housing projects. There is no state without an ongoing major Federal Government project that passes through it, today.”
Osinbajo said that the government has been able to achieve a lot despite earning far less than previous administrations.
