Nigeria’s President, Retired Major General Muhammadu Buhari has expressed very serious concerns about the problems that may be associated with the lockdown, occasioned by the global outbreak of the coronavirus, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said on Friday.
Osinbajo spoke during an encounter with Journalists from The Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), following his meeting with President Bihari in the Aso Rock Presidential Villa, Abuja, Nigeria.
The meeting, he said was centered around how to ensure that the economy remains stable, that jobs are protected and if possible, more jobs are created and finding ways to mitigate the negative economic impact of the lockdown on the Nigerian people by providing them some scour.
Below are the question and answer, as released by Laolu Akande, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Office of the Vice President.
Question: Your Excellency, what do you want Nigerians to know regarding your engagement with the President as the head of the high-powered Economic Sustainability Committee?
Answer: I came to brief the President, as it is usual, the regular briefing that I give, sometimes I come physically as you have seen me today, other times I brief him on the phone or by video conference.
What we are concerned about is how to ensure that the economy remains stable, that jobs are protected and if possible, more jobs are created. We are very concerned about that and the President has expressed very serious concerns about the problems that may be associated with the lockdown.
Many of our people work for a daily wage, they have to go out to work, so we have to think in terms of how to ensure that we are able to give them some succor during the period when they are not able to work.
Some of those issues are the issues Mr. President wanted me to discuss fully with him. Of course, we have the Economic Sustainability Committee and shortly we are going to submit a full report to Mr. President on our thoughts and ideas.
Mr. President asked me to meet with him, in particular, to resolve some of the pressing issues around COVID-19 and also around the economic problems that we are seeing already.
