Opening Of The 20th Session Of The National Council On Development And Planning

• Share:

KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY HIS EXCELLENCY, PROF YEMI OSINBAJO, SAN, GCON, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA TO THE 20TH SESSION OF THE NATIONAL COUNCIL ON DEVELOPMENT AND PLANNING, MAIDUGURI, BORNO STATE, ON THE 5^TH OF AUGUST 2021

PROTOCOLS

I am delighted to join you today at this special session of the National Council on Development Planning. I thank Governor Babagana Zulum and the great people of Borno State for the hospitality and support extended toward the successful hosting of this meeting. I also commend the Honourable Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Dr. (Mrs) Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed, the Honourable Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Agba and all the Commissioners for Budget and Economic Planning who are attending this very important meeting in person for having surmounted all odds posed by COVID-19 to participate in this crucial meeting.

The fact that this important meeting is taking place in Maiduguri shows the desire of all of us to support Borno State which has faced very challenging times in every way possible.

It is also a testament to the visible and untiring efforts of Governor Babagana Zulum and the Borno State Government to restore the State to a path of peace, security and sustainable development.

I must say that I follow closely the great strides that governor Zulum has been making. And looking at the work he has done in housing, education, small businesses, with little resources and in one of the worst-hit states in terms of terrorist disruptions. It is evident that our problem is often not the paucity of funds as we like to say, but a paucity of dedication to the people and their wellbeing. Your Excellency, we are proud of the incredible achievements you have made in barely three years and we wish you very well in the coming years.

Through the years I have always considered an opportunity to address the National Council on Development Planning as an important one and my reason is that this gathering is unlike any other. Those of you who are here are the thought leaders in the development and planning for the Public Sector in our country.  You are the bureaucratic elite responsible for clearly understanding the past, while planning, seeking appropriate solutions, and mapping out effective pathways to deal with the multiple and complex matters that will arise in the future. It follows then that your appreciation and correct interpretation of the critical issues, trends and events that may influence socio-economic outcomes nationally and in our various states is crucial. So, what I would like to do at these meetings of the NCP is to throw out a few broad issues, trends or developments that I believe will be significant in our nation’s socio-economic development and political economy and which should therefore require some interrogation by our planners and development technocrats.

Let me mention five such issues; the COVID 19 pandemic, a brief mention of security, climate change, education, the fourth industrial revolution, and the African Continental Free Trade Agreements.

Each of these matters require deliberate policy responses and deserve the attention of this distinguished gathering of economic managers.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a unique and devastating impact on our health and economic systems and social life.  For a vibrant and enterprising people like ours, the whole experience of lockdowns and social distancing has been quite trying while economic difficulties made existing socio-economic conditions even harder.  As is well known, the Federal Government responded by way of the Economic Sustainability Plan which focused on saving and creating businesses and jobs while boosting local production.  We’ve had the very impactful MSME Survival Fund, the Agriculture for Food and Jobs programme, Mass Housing, the Rapid Response Register and the SolarPowerNaija Programmes amongst other things.

It can be said that the ESP worked in the sense that the economy recovered quite early from the recession occasioned by the pandemic, but it must also be said that we are not yet out of the woods.   Apart from the fact that GDP growth rate of 0.51% in the first quarter of 2021 is not yet at its level before the COVID-19 hit the economy, there is also the fact that the especially virulent Delta variant of the virus is causing serious problems in other parts of the world and we are already experiencing here in severe magnitude.

By yesterday, there were 505 new cases of COVID-19 representing an over 27% fold increase since the beginning of July.  In Lagos State, for instance, the Governor recently stated that the State has a daily average of 6 confirmed deaths which is a 33% increase in cases of fatalities from the previous week.

Some people have described the current wave as a pandemic of the unvaccinated in the sense that it is people who have not been vaccinated in developed economies that are most seriously affected.  As economic managers, we are faced with two related challenges that must occupy our minds that if we don’t pay attention to, may hinder our return fully to economic activity.  First, we must find the resources to procure and administer sufficient quantities of COVID-19 vaccines and actively encourage our people to get vaccinated to enable us as a country reach herd immunity and to also observe all the non-pharmaceutical interventions required to be safe such as wearing of masks, washing of hands and social distancing.

Secondly, we must ponder on ways and means of restoring and boosting local capacity to produce vaccinations, not only for COVID-19 but for the other diseases that continue to stalk the land.

I will not dwell too long on security, only to say that the adverse effects on food production and investments is obvious. The President has ordered a major overhaul of our security architecture and as you know barely 10 days ago signed a supplementary budget of almost N700billion of that budget is dedicated to retooling the Military, Police and intelligence services.

Already we are aware of the substantial resources in men and materials that are being deployed by States to ensure security, but as planners, we are called upon to proffer policy advice in these times and our emphasis must be on effective synergies with the federal government.

On climate change, while it is generally agreed that Africa has contributed least to global warming, it is also by common consent expected to suffer the most from its consequences.  Indeed, we recently saw extreme weather events such as severe flooding and heatwaves in many parts of the world and severe flooding in many parts of our own country.  This means that we must share in the responsibility of tackling climate change.

However, global efforts to tackle climate change and ensure environmental sustainability will challenge us here in Nigeria in a number of ways.  This is what I really want us to pay attention to – what are the challenges posed to us in Nigeria by the attempts of the international communities to tackle global warming? Quite evidently, the global drive to reduce the use of fossil fuels to mitigate the rise in global temperature will reduce demand for fossil fuels.  This will affect us because of our dependence on oil and gas for revenues and foreign exchange earnings.  We just have to find alternative sources.

At the same time, we have limited resources with which to finance the technological and lifestyle changes needed to adapt to climate change.  This means that the push by multilateral finance institutions to defund oil and gas projects will be particularly hurtful to Nigeria.  This is more so in the case of gas because we like other African countries have tonnes of this transition fuel which is less polluting and which has a key role to help us reduce the use of more carbon-emitting substances like coal and firewood for cooking.  This is why the President has continued to join other well-meaning leaders across the world to call for a just transition. By a just transition, we mean when transiting from fossil fuel and coal because it is not good, and transiting to cleaner fuel, that transition must be just and equitable, we must pay attention to developing countries with oil and gas and allow them to continue to use gas and fund gas projects as much as possible because it’s a transition fuel, and of course, it’s better than the use of firewood and the likes.

We must urge a standstill of attempts to defund gas projects at the forthcoming 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26, in Glasgow.  It is the 26^th edition of the conference.

Given the vital role that we expect gas to play in our national development going forward, the Federal Government introduced the National Gas Expansion Programme in the Economic Sustainability Plan.  Apart from the need to overcome the economic costs of the PMS fuel subsidy by encouraging a shift to gas, this fuel will also help to meet our other energy and transportation needs ranging from simple household cooking to power plants.  We also see renewable energy as part of the solution and this explains why we have been working on the provision of 5million households with solar power under the SolarPowerNaija scheme. We have deployed about 500,000 now and we are looking at expanding that figure. Two months ago, we were in Jigawa State, Jangefe community where we launched this SolarPowerNaija programme. We think that this is going to be an effective way of mitigating some of the problems of climate change but importantly, for providing jobs and opportunities in that sector for young Nigerians.

There are those who wonder how a country like Nigeria will cope with the 4th Industrial Revolution given that we have struggled to catch up with the 2nd and 3rd Industrial Revolutions.  There is also fear that the steady march of Artificial Intelligence and digital automation will pose serious risks to jobs and existing production activities.  For instance, apart from the fact that they mean we will sell less oil, driverless electric cars are coming into their own now. Several countries say that by 2030, they would no longer use combustion engines but would now use electric cars which mean less petrol. This means the loss of millions of jobs just as well as the use of robotics in manufacturing, finance and other processes.  Indeed, 3-D printing is already making serious in-roads into manufacturing and building construction in developed countries but with serious implications for our own efforts to manufacture and industrialise.

I believe however that the important thing for economic managers to stress at a time like this is that with adept planning, we can leapfrog into the digital age.  But the answer to these issues is simple – education, education, education, especially basic education. It is scandalous for us to be dealing with out-of-school children. We must put our resources into education and today we have no choice but to focus on relevant education. Education that will prepare our young people for 21st-century jobs and opportunities. It is not that difficult which is the good news. Teaching coding and digital skills in school today is simpler and simpler every day, we can do it and it is entirely possible.

This will require that we provide our young people with the skills to thrive in a digital world especially through STEM education and accompanying training in technical and vocational education.  At the same time, we must find the resources to invest in technology and related broadband infrastructure if we are to help the budding technology ecosystem in our country to continue to excel.

This is why the Federal Government is working assiduously with the African Development Bank to launch the Nigerian Innovation Programme which will be backed by a $500 million fund to support the technology and creative sectors of the economy.

We continue to see the African Continental Free Trade Area as another development with great promise for Nigeria’s economic prospects but one for which we have to be well prepared. First, we must especially as sub-nationals take a more active interest in the agreement, its implications and opportunities for our different States. The businesses and enterprises that will benefit or be at disadvantage on account of the free trade agreement are in our States. This is why it is important to recognise that we owe them, businesses and enterprises and our governments, a duty to look out for their interests.

One of the very critical things that we must continue to emphasize of AfCFTA is Nigeria is likely to be the biggest beneficiary and it will also be the biggest target for all sorts of unfair trade practices. This is why as planners we must take into account all that is going on with these agreements. We must develop units in our planning ministries that are dedicated to looking at the African Continental Free Trade Agreements and ensure we are up to date with the agreements, the negotiations and the impact that it will have on our businesses.

Our large-scale infrastructural projects in power, roads, rail and broadband connectivity will help in this regard as will our efforts to improve competitiveness by making the economy more business-friendly.  I accept that there is no way we are going to be able to realize our aspirations without raising the resources needed for investment in production and infrastructure, as well as for the provision of social services and social protection.

However, we must do this in ways that do not pose an undue burden on businesses and I would say that in their search for more internally generated revenue, States should eliminate multiple levies and charges and ensure that those that remain are simple and are collected in a transparent, fair and seamless manner.  As numerous payment platforms have shown, the deployment of technology can help to remove discretion and human agency while making collections easier.

We must also support ongoing efforts of the Federal Government to ensure broadband connectivity for all by 2023. This is an important part of our leapfrogging into the digital age. Everywhere in Nigeria, we must have broadband connectivity, but we cannot have this if States are charging those laying those cables and providing these services in a manner that discourages them from being able to lay those cables and provide the connectivity that is required.

Given that we live in challenging times, it is quite fortuitous that we are just about to begin a new planning cycle in terms of successors frameworks to Vision 20:20:20 and the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan. I’m sure that some of us are paying attention to what is going on, the efforts being made for these successor plans.

I expect that these documents will take account of the challenges we face in this era while addressing our other existing developmental objectives such as ramping up production in agriculture, manufacturing, mining and services, increasing investment in physical and human capital and providing social protection for vulnerable sections of our society.

As I said at your last meeting, coordination is at the heart of economic management, so it is pleasing that this National Council on Development Planning provides an annual opportunity for an exchange of views by Federal and State level officials.  Our programmes must be aligned to maximise impact and prevent duplication and waste. I am pleased to know that our planners have engaged with State Governments in drawing up our new plans.  In addition, I would urge State Governments to also strengthen their planning frameworks and embark on developing their own state visions and plans so as to guide investment decisions in the public and private sectors. We are always prepared to offer whatever technical assistance the States may require in developing their own visions and plans and we have had quite a bit of experience in doing so already.

Going forward, our common objective should remain to ride the crest of current turbulent socio-economic conditions in order to provide better and fuller lives and decent jobs for Nigerians, especially our young people.  Our challenge is not a simple one for we must generate growth, eradicate poverty, develop our human capital and build up the infrastructural backbone for long-term development and to do so in a sustainable manner.  It is however doable if we remain focused and recommit to service with a sense of urgency.

It, therefore, goes without saying that all tiers of Government must be open-minded and collaborative in meeting our shared aspirations.

I am positive that the deliberations of this Council will contribute to achieving these noble objectives especially as we work together to achieve the target of lifting 100million Nigerians out of poverty over the next decade.

As I close, I thank the Organising Committee and other key stakeholders for their efforts to ensure the successful convening of this Conference. I look forward to receiving the outcomes and to the presentation of the Report of this 20th session of the NCDP to the next meeting of the National Economic Council.

It is now my pleasure to formally declare open the 20th Session of the National Council on Development Planning.

Thank you very much and God bless you.