By Egena Sunday Ode
Determined to create more opportunities for Nigerians and close the unemployment gap in the country, the Buhari administration has over the years, prioritized employment generation by integrating job creation in all its major policies, projects and programmes, according to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
According to his media aide, Laolu Akande n a statement, Osinbajo disclosed this on Monday at the formal presentation of the Research Report of Course 29 of the National Defence College, titled “Creating Jobs & Opportunities for Africa’s Largest Youth Population”, at the Presidential Villa.
He said: “If you recall, when the President was speaking concerning the budget in 2019, he mentioned that one of the critical things to do, concerning every Minister, is that, with every policy, we must state how many jobs to create.
“So, the key question that we ask regarding any government policy is how many jobs will this bring about, how many jobs it will create. And aside from that, there have also been several engagements with different policy bodies and ideas concerning job creation.”
Continuing, the VP said, “the whole idea of creating jobs and opportunities especially in an economy this size, is that government’s involvement must be in creating the enabling environment.”
Speaking on some of the programmes specifically designed to create jobs, Prof. Osinbajo noted that “you are probably aware of the current effort of the Presidential Economic Advisory Council which was launched recently – the National Poverty Reduction with Growth Strategy, which I have the privilege of chairing its Steering Committee. This is another of the very broad plans of creating opportunities and more jobs.”
The VP noted that “there are also other several job initiatives. The Economic Sustainability Plan (ESP) is a major plan of job creation, as a matter of fact, the major focus of our ESP is job creation – sustaining existing jobs and then being able to create other jobs.”
“The Food for Jobs programme which is an agricultural programme is a major initiative that has led to the identification of 5 million farmers, and these farmers are geo-tagged to their farmlands which is the first time that this has been done in the history of the country.
