Osinbajo, Governors Raise Alarm Over Increasing Population

At the valedictory session of the National Economic Council (NEC) at the State House, Abuja on Thursday, increasing population, ‘small’ economy and so on dominated discourse, reports Augustine Ehikioya, Abuja.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and some state governors Thursday raised the alarm over the increasing population.

The population, they warned, may double in the next few years with adverse effects on available infrastructures and facilities.

They spoke during the valedictory session of the National Economic Council (NEC) at the State House, Abuja.

Osinbajo also called for condemnation of those involved in hate speeches in the country.

Nigerians, he said, should not take lightly those capable of causing the crisis in the country through their utterances.

He urged the governors whose tenures are coming to end nit to spend their lives sleeping outside power.

Osinbajo said: “The privilege of executive leadership at this level is the one only a few of us will ever have. When I say few of us, it is few of us in our nation I have said at a previous forum, 36 governors and their deputies, one President and one Vice President we will be 74 in all men and women of a nation of 200 million. It is on this elite group that the destiny and future of all our people rest.

“In the next few years, our population will double with the attendant challenges of jobs, education, health care, security and infrastructure. Every nation that has to move its people from misery to prosperity has depended heavily in fact almost completely on the political elite.

“Our people have nowhere else to look or to go, it is as they say, at the collective table that the buck stops.”

Speaking on those involved in making hate speeches in the country, Osinbajo said: “Many of us have led our states for these many years, no one needs to advise us on the importance of unity, on importance of tempering utterances with wisdom, with moderation and conserve expressing concern for those who are the usual victims of the conflicts that are caused by hate speech, the conflicts that are caused by careless and reckless statements.

“The ordinary Nigerian has no problems with his brothers and sisters of different tribes and religions, they share the same issues, they just want a decent existence, they want food on the table, they want good shelter and security of lives and livelihoods.

Source: TheNation