How Buhari inspire Osibanjo

Though it is not known to many Nigerians, the
Office of he Vice President is actually saddled with
the task of providing the economic roadmaps in

conjunction with relevant bodies for the president’s
approval. And so, the Vice President, Professor
Yemi Osinbajo wouldn’t stop at nothing to help his
principal, President Muhammadu Buhari succeed in
putting the country on a sound pedestal. For one
year now, both men have come to appreciate their
passion for the country and Osinbajo’s Special
Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Laolu Akande
who follows and greatly understands the passion
of these two leaders shares with select few
Newspapers a vivid insider’s account of what the
Economic Team located in the Vice President’s
office has been doing, the gains of the Social
Welfare Scheme of the government amongst other
things. Vanguard was there.
Excerpts:
The Vice President is doing a lot on the
economy and apparently, the impact of this
administration’s Economic Management Team
has not been felt on the nation’s economy, one
year after. What will you tell Nigerians?
I think the Economic Management Team started
taking shape after ministers were inaugurated.
That means it is not up to a year. That was
probably October or November 2015 or
thereabout. We have to understand that the
attitude of this Presidency is to consider the
management of the economy as a government
responsibility. It is not something that this
government believes should be done by bringing
in some of the private interests into the
economic team to take a decision that they will
be directly involved with.
So our stand is that the management of the
economy is a government responsibility and we
engage the stakeholders in the economy. For
instance, we have started meeting on constant
basis with Manufacturers Association of Nigeria,
MAN. There have been meetings with arms of
the economic sector of the country.
There have been meetings with the Nigerian
Economic Summit Group, NESG and some other
economic interests with companies making
presentations. But generally, this is a government
team and the team has been able to set out
before the budget trying to figure out what the
budget ought to focus on.
After the budget was presented and eventually
signed, there was also the publication of the
strategic implementation plan which was
produced in a reader friendly format. All of these
are the outcomes of what Economic
Management Team does and it is also in the
team that you have the heap of the whole
physical and monetary policy and don’t forget
that the monetary policy is always the duty and
responsibility of the Central Bank which is an
economic arm of government.
At times, more than once in a week, almost
certainly most of the time, the team meets every
Monday and make proposal and suggestions to
the President but then, the team is actually like
an adhoc committee of the Federal Executive
Council and that is why we don’t throw a lot of
media around it because it is a committee that is
meant to advise Mr. President. So the team, for
instance, defined six themes around the
economy and used that to build the budget and
reflate the economy. The first is Policy,
Governance and Security which includes issues
such as ensuring a stable and predictable
currency exchange rate and securing the nation
among others. The second one is Economic
Diversification which includes achieving targeted
self sufficiency in agriculture produce and
increasing private sector investments.
The third is infrastructural development which
includes the completion of several NIPPs, the
Lagos -Calabar coastal railway among others. Oil
and gas reforms is the fourth one and it includes
privatisation of refineries, PIB, ensuring gas
availability to power the plants. The Ease of
Doing Business is the fifth one. In this regard,
the President has constituted a Presidential
Council headed by the VP to look at fast
tracking Pre-investment approvals across the
country, eliminate bureaucratic delays and so on.
The last one is the social investment meant to
assuage unemployment pains, development of
human capacity and improve school enrollment
Nigerians are saying that the economy right now
is not in a good shape. How do you tell them
that the government is working towards ensuring
that the economy bounces back?
As much as we try not to say this, we know as a
matter of fact that members of the past
administration, most of them have come out to
say they did not save for the rainy day. So we
are dealing mostly with situations that have been
caused even before this administration took over
power. The President and his team have worked
hard and planned not only to save cost, not only
to tighten public expenditure but to also diversify
the economy like never before.
So we are sure and we believe that going
forward, things will begin to pick up again. It is
taking a while because of the extent of the
damage. If the country took a sharp drop as
much as 70 percent drop in its foreign earning,
you can begin to understand some of the
difficulties that the country is going through
where States used to share a huge sum of
money which have come down incredibly. For
instance, I believe in April I think the whole
foreign earning was just about $550m which is
low. So these are the problems and a lot of what
is happening right now in the country is as a
result of some of the decisions that were taken
in the past but the administration has clearly
changed the direction of this country and going
forward we expect better things.
This is the second year of the administration
and the same song of what the past government
did or didn’t do is still responsible for where we
are. When would Nigerians expect the first fruit
of this administration?
The first fruit is already in place because we
have started rebuilding. I think to some extent,
that question presupposes that building is still
continuing, no! I believe that a huge factor in
the way Nigeria is today economically is
corruption. We can’t run away from that and the
President has made it clear and I think everyone
in the country now understands that and it is not
going to continue. Effectively, he has reduced
the corruption in Nigeria. Look at the TSA, for
instance, which has managed to save over N3trn
that would have been lost if we didn’t have the
TSA implemented. I think he tried to cut cost
with many ghost workers in the federal payroll
detected and I understand that the process is
continuing. So one of the things that the
President has delivered is that the bleeding has
stopped and that is so important.
The constitution requires that whatever is made
is deposited into the Federation’s Account in
which case, you can’t keep aside any money. So
how can this government accuse past
government of not saving?
Well, there are several ways of managing your
resources adequately in a prudent way. Firstly,
when a barrel was being sold for over $100, what
did we do with the money? It is a very simple
preposition. And as much as some of our friends
in the media will tend to say what is up and
down there is no way you won’t have to look
back to look forward. That is the point. How
many of the infrastructural projects that were
made have been implemented for the betterment
of people? How many were delivered? And how
many roads were built for instance in the last 8,
9, 10 years? These are the ways of managing
your resources well to take care of the future
and I think when you look at the idea of the
Sovereign Wealth Fund, SWF, it is also a good
idea which this country needs. That is why we
say Nigeria would have safeguarded much more
than what we have. So when you spend your
resources adequately on your people, when you
spend your resources on infrastructure, in the
sense, you are saving. What I am saying is that
we had a lot of wrongs in the past.
Let’s look at the government’s social welfare
scheme. Many would have thought that with the
media hype that characterized it, by now, you
should have been able to point to certain
number of people that have benefited from the
scheme.
You have to agree that we do have some delay in
the whole process because of the timing of the
budget approval. For instance, when we came in
at the end of May, there was no way the
government could implement some of those
social welfare schemes because it was not
budgeted for. So we had to wait for the budget
process to kick in so that we can begin to put
our ideas forward which was done and since the
budget has been signed now, we are taking off.
For instance, we have started the 500, 000 jobs
for unemployed graduates and people have been
applying and I can tell you that the project will
continue for the rest of July and the application
process should end sometime at the end of this
month and we would go to the next stage of
picking the 500, 000 unemployed that have been
selected.
The school feeding is also in the process. We
are in the process of sitting down with the
States that will start the first phase of it, trying
to work out the modalities of how that is done. I
think we can identify the States that would start.
The States are already developed with the World
Bank or the states where the register has been
developed working with the World Bank to start
the conditional cash transfer. So that is also in
progress. As soon as funds become available, we
would begin to announce very soon the
commencement of these programmes.
What is the time frame of these projects.
Besides, do you think that N23,000 earmarked
as the salaries can sustain a graduate looking at
the harsh economic realities on ground now.
I believe the intention of the President is to
make impact in the lives of Nigerians. The
500,000 jobs for unemployed graduates is a
continuous programme. So, we expect that the
people are going to exit after two years and I
also think a new set of people after the two
years will come in but it is going to get to a
point that the economy would have picked up
and sufficiently advanced to create private
sector jobs. So, we can’t begin to talk about the
termination of the programme now because it is
just starting. Hopefully it is something that is
going to go on for a while.
On the issue of the N23, 000, the way we
conceived the allocation of 500,000 jobs for
unemployed graduates is not so much to see it
as a full time permanent job. It is like a volunteer
job and then people get paid. The idea is to
intervene. The idea is to say that N23, 000 is
better than nothing. They will stay in their
community and help to teach, help in health
sector. N23,000 is not a lot of money but it is an
intervention to reduce the situation. We believe
within two years, all things being equal and by
the grace of God and all the programmes of this
government in the economy, technology,
agriculture, more jobs, real jobs, better jobs
would be created.
One thing that you are also not taking into
consideration is the fact that we planned to pay
N30,000 but an idea came that why don’t we
actually do more in terms of preparing and
equipping those selected 500,000 graduates by
giving a laptop or an iPad that would be
equipped with different kinds of Apps that can
help them to develop new skills. So N7,000
would be taken out of the N30,000 and would
be used to give them maybe an iPad or a laptop.
We are working with Microsoft and some
technology firms abroad on how to give a good
and useful skill that people can be empowered
through and by that, even though he or she
leaves in two years, he or she would take away
that iPad, that laptop and be allowed to continue
to improve themselves. So we are looking at it
as something that is a little bit more exciting
than just those two years. We intend to create
conditions that would give opportunity to people
to actually discover their hidden talents, some of
their gifts by exposing them to better technology
in different aspects of life.
Some people have the impression that the
recruitment would have been better handled by
the NDE or relevant ministries instead of the
office of the Vice President. They feel the
exercise will not be transparent under the current
arrangement. How will you react to this?
The first thing about this process is that it is
transparent and that is why we are using a
platform that everybody can go and check. That
is the first thing. That is why we are insisting on
applications. NDE is involved. The ministries are
involved. When we have a project that cuts
across ministries, we need co-ordination and
that is what the Presidency is doing. So it is for
the reason of bringing about effective co-
ordination of some of these programmes that Mr.
President has asked the Vice president to co-
ordinate this programme to bring the ministries
together. It is not just something that is done by
one ministry and you don’t want a situation
where everybody would be going in different
ways. The Presidency exists for the purposes of
coordinating the job of government. That is why
it is being co-ordinated. So each of these
programme has inter-ministerial interactions and
working effectively and efficiently to deliver on
the programme of Mr. President.
The Vice President co-ordinates the economy
under this administration. Is he not concerned
about reports of illegal recruitments in some
government agencies such as CBN and FIRS?
Some of these reports are inaccurate. What we
heard is that government is working to ensure
that we develop going forward in more
transparent process. We are committed in going
forward to ensure that some of these procedures
are refined, fine tuned and made to become
more transparent.
How has it been serving the government in the
last one year?
Well, it has been exciting especially for someone
like me having lived outside this country for 17
years. So, to have the opportunity to serve a
President and Vice President both of whom are
men of high integrity, is a privilege and it is also
a very unique opportunity to work with the
President and Vice President: people that you
know will not go back and cut corners. I think it
is good that we have a President that has
integrity. We have a leader at this time who
everybody knows is very honest. Someone whose
only agenda is how to make this country great
again. I must tell you that it is extremely
inspiring in the last one year. I count myself
blessed.
How do you cope with the pace of the Vice-
President who is apparently a workaholic?
I think the Vice President himself is inspired by
the President. That is the truth. I remember I
had a discussion with him even before he gave
me the job and he told me he had always
regarded the then General Buhari for his
frugalness, honesty, his desire to touch the lives
of people. So I believe the Vice President sees
this as an opportunity that Nigeria has, having a
leader of President Buhari’s calibre. He has to
throw in everything that he has got to make this
administration work to support the programme of
the President. That is why you see the Vice
President working endlessly because he believes
that having someone like President Buhari at the
head of affairs of this country is a great
opportunity that shouldn’t be lost.