Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said that the problem of extreme poverty in Nigeria keeps him up at night.
Osinbajo said this at a dinner and interactive session with Faculty Members, Harvard Business School (HBS) on Tuesday in Lagos.
“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,” he said.
“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.’’
Also at the dinner were speakers like Srikant Datar, Professor of Business Administration (HBS); and Bayo Ogunlesi, an investment banker.
Osinbajo said that a lot of government policies have been focused at people at the bottom of the pyramid through support for agriculture and credit facilities to farmers.
“In the next few months, we will unveil a plan that deals with most of the critical issues in the power sector,’’ he said.
On his part, Prof. Datar said he was particularly proud of Osinbajo as an academic in governance.
He said that academics provide enabling environment for good governance.
Mr Ogunlesi said that the era of depending on government for infrastructure was gone, and that the Federal Government had no business running infrastructure in Nigeria, especially the airports.
Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, called for urgent action to address the high poverty rate in Nigeria especially in the North West.
The event was also attended by Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu; US Ambassador to Nigeria, Stuart Symington, among others.