Nigerians Are Poorer Than Ever In History – Osinbajo

Vice-President, Yemi Osinbajo has said Nigeria’s poverty  situation is getting worse as the days go bye.

This was made though through his spokesman, Laolu Akande during the first year ministerial performance review retreat.

Minister registered accounts of their performance in the last one year.

According to Osinbajo, the standard of living in the  country has been seriously affected by the coronavirus pandemic

He therefore charged ministers to expedite action on the N2.3 trillion stimulus package designed by the government to mitigate the effect of the crisis on the economy.

“We are already in Day 67 since the plan. Nothing is going to happen by magic, we have to simply do this stuff,” he said.

“We have to ensure that we have the money and ensure that day by day, we are measuring our achievements and trying to ensure that we do the things that we need to do.

He added that time was not on their side as every single day the poverty situation and the economic distortions deepen.

According to Osinbajo, four million farmers has been enumerated  by the federal government under the mass agriculture programme.

He added that the government plans to build 300,000 homes across the country under the mass housing programme.

He further stated that there are plans to ensure that the prices of the houses will not exceed N2 million each.

“There is one which is ongoing by the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing, and the one under the Family Homes Fund is also supervised by the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing,” he said.

“The mass agriculture programme is one where we envisaged that we will be engaging many farmers. So far, we have enumerated at least 4 million farmers.

“So, these are farmers who are tied to their lands and we have the geo-statistics that shows where their land is and we have about 4 million of them. And we expect that with each state contributing acreage for farming, we will be able to do significant numbers.

“The plan is designed in such a way that in each one of the programmes, we are engaging as many Nigerians as possible. The expected outcome for agriculture, even if each farmer employs an additional person, this will result in an additional 4 million jobs and even more jobs along the value chain. We also will be looking at developing rural roads to reduce post-harvest losses.”