Osinbajo optimistic of Nigeria’s economy emerging stronger post-COVID-19

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo is optimistic that Nigeria will come out of the COVID-19 pandemic much stronger economically and much stronger as a people because of our resilience.

 Although, there are a lot of challenges but the Vice President believed they offer significant opportunities for the nation to turn things around.

The Vice President assured Nigerians during his interaction at the 2020 edition of ‘The Platform’ themed “Nigeria’s battle against COVID-19”.

According to him. “I am very confident that Nigerians, with our resilience, our strength and our innovation, we will go through this in great shape.”

The Platform is an annual discussion programme of the Covenant Christian Centre that features discussions around the state of the Nigerian nation and its development. The May 2020 edition featured virtual participants without a live audience as a result of the global pandemic. 

The Vice President then laid out some of the Federal Government’s efforts to address the economic fallouts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Speaking specifically about how the country can transform the challenges caused by the pandemic into opportunities for economic diversification and job creation, the Vice President said prioritizing the use of local resources and creating local jobs in the construction and allied industry, amongst other things, will be critical in sustaining the economy in the post-COVID-19 era.

“We have to prioritize the use of local resources in all public works. In road construction for instance, it is cheaper to build concrete roads using limestone than spending resources on the importation of bitumen. We have limestone in abundance hence we should be looking in that direction. The road from the Apapa port to the Lagos –Ibadan expressway is being built with cement and is of high quality.

“In the housing sector where we have a huge deficit, we need to focus on using local resources to build houses and in the process, we will be creating opportunities for young engineers, architects and builders etc.”, he said.

In the area of agriculture, the Vice President said the government’s initial policies have saved the country from the huge forex burden of food imports and related activities.

“We think that by ramping up agriculture, especially smallholder agriculture and improving the value chain, especially in storage and processing facilities, more jobs will be created for many young people. We have found ourselves in a situation where we realize that the way to go is to support the creation of the jobs in agriculture and reduce food imports and ultimately address the issue of unemployment and food shortages.”