Extreme poverty in Nigeria gives me sleepless nights, says Osinbajo

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo says the problem of extreme poverty in Nigeria keeps him up at night.

Mr Osinbajo disclosed this at a dinner and Interactive Session with Faculty Members, Harvard Business School (HBS) on Tuesday in Lagos.

The vice president featured alongside Srikant Datar, Professor of Business Administration (HBS), and Bayo Ogunlesi, a Nigerian investment banker, at a question and answer session moderated by Hakeem Bello-Osagie, Chairman of Metis Capital Partners.

“I think what keeps me up at night has to do with extreme poverty; the issue is that the largest number of those who vote for us are the very poor.

“The promises that government makes to them is that their lives will be better and obviously they are looking at their lives being better in the shortest possible time.

“I will like to see Nigeria being an industrialised nation in the next 10 years; a very strong middle class and most people living above poverty line.’’

Osinbajo said that a lot of government policies were taking into account people at the bottom of the pyramid with a focus on agriculture and getting credit facilities to farmers in order to achieve self-sufficiency.

He said that many farmers in the country had been lifted out of poverty by this administration.

-NAN