Tag: Prof. Yemi Osinbajo

• Deplores slow accreditation

The vice presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, has hailed the conduct of yesterday’s presidential and national assembly elections.

Though he flayed the late arrival of electoral materials and officials, Osinbajo said the process was “smooth but slow.”

Speaking shortly after casting his vote by 8:10pm at his polling 033 Unit 4 in Victoria Garden City (VGC) Lagos, the former Lagos Attorney General said the long wait was worth the stress.

According to him, “The accreditation was painfully slow but what matters is that it is worth the wait.

“One has been able to vote and that is what counts. It doesn’t matter how much one has gone through. The joy is that voting can take place despite the logistics challenges.”

Osinbajo, who arrived at the VGC recreational park at exactly 8:20am, was not accredited until 2:05pm.

Officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) arrived the voting centre around 10:30am, more than two hours after accreditation should have commenced.

Voters, who besieged the unit, waited patiently under the shades in the park.

To while away boredom, many of them greeted Osinbajo warmly before demanding for photo shots with him.

A smiling Osinbajo obliged, exchanging pleasantries with a handful of them.

When the officials arrived, accreditation didn’t start until 1:15pm owing to the malfunctioning of the two card readers attached to the unit.

It took the delivery of back-up readers before the process could commence.

Voting eventually commenced by 6:05pm with accredited voters refusing to leave the centre until they had performed their civic obligations.

Osinbajo, who refused to jump the queue, told reporters that he was motivated to wait all the way to exemplify the new Nigeria the APC is working hard to build.

“I think it’s all in the spirit of the new Nigeria. Everyone has to learn to be patient and queue to get things done.”

His wife, Dolapo, said there were no qualms with having to wait.

“It’s part of the bargain and we have to always wait because that is life,” she stated.

THE All Progressives Congress (APC) has assured Nigerians that the party will implement its economic recovery policies to create employment for jobless youths and wealth for the citizenry.

Its vice presidential candidate, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, spoke yesterday while addressing Niger Delta youths in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital.

He said the implementation of a national economic recovery policy was the surest way to secure jobs for millions of the nation’s jobless youths and a deliberate policy of APC towards a national economic recovery.

As part of the economic recovery plan, he said APC government would grant tax incentives to employers with as low as 10 employees.

He said this would be done to encourage employers of labour to keep their employees, expand their business and employ more people.

Prof. Osinbajo, who addressed youths from Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Rivers, Delta, Edo and Bayelsa on the theme: “Secure the future: Discussing Change with the youths”, at Amazing Grace Events Centre in the state capital, said over 80 per cent of the nation’s youths were not positively engaged because of the failings of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-led administration over the years.

He noted that the youth population in Nigeria was larger than the population of some African countries and that it would take a determined government like the one to be led by the APC to device and implement well-thought-out policies aimed at creating gainful employments for millions of youths.

The APC vice presidential candidate told the gathering that the future of Nigeria rest on what the nation does with its youths today.

The party, he promised, would secure “the future of Nigeria by positively engaging the youths across the nation”.

Once in power, Prof. Osinbajo assured, the party would secure at least 20,000 jobs per state for the Nigerian youths in the first instance.

He identified technology as one major area of growth the party would employ to secure jobs for Nigerians.

He added that the party would establish major technology incubation centres from where Nigerians would get involve in direct production of computers, smartphones and other related accessories as was the case in APC-controlled Osun State.

He said the APC government at the centre would build industrial parks, encourage out-sourcing of jobs, introduce entrepreneurial training into the nation’s education to enable the youth to become self-dependent and become employment generators on leaving school instead of depending on government alone.

According to him, the party would also establish Energy Academy, where professionals for the energy sector would be trained.

He noted that a serious-minded government should be able to identify great potential, where jobs for the people are created and secured.

On national power problem, Prof. Osinbajo said the APC government would decentralise power generation issues as was being done by the APC government in Lagos State, where he said certain areas were identified and efforts made by government to provide steady power for them.

The party’s vice presidential candidate noted that if conscious efforts were taken and power provided for business clusters, they would allow firms to retain their employees, remain in business, employ more people as well as pay tax to the government.

“The retail business, sports and entertainment sectors of the economy have been taken care of by the party with a view to providing jobs for the youth and progress for the nation,” he assured the youths.

Prof. Osinbajo said Nigeria’s problem was not all about the falling price of crude oil in the international market, but about corruption under the PDP-led government in last 16 years.

He said those opposing the party’s presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, were doing so out of fear for his anti-corruption posture.

“We will put a government in place that is ready to fight corruption. The reason they are afraid of Buhari is for fear of arrest to stop corruption. We will check misgovernance across the country,” he stated.

The Edo State Deputy Governor assured the Akwa Ibom State APC governorship candidate, Mr. Umana Okon Umana, that winning the governorship election of Akwa Ibom Stare was a possibility.

He reminded him and the Akwa Ibom people that it was thought impossible to remove PDP from Edo State, adding that was a history now.