Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said that the Buhari regime is prioritising job creation in every way possible, including fixing job-creation initiatives in its policies.

Osinbajo said this on Monday at the formal presentation of the Research Report of Course 29 of the National Defence College, titled “Creating Jobs and Opportunities for Africa’s Largest Youth Population,” at the Presidential Villa.

Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President on Media and Publicity, Laolu Akande, disclosed this in a statement titled, ‘Why We Are Prioritising Job Creation, By Osinbajo’.

The Vice President said, “If you recall, when the President was speaking concerning the budget in 2019, he mentioned that one of the critical things to do, concerning every Minister, is that, with every policy, we must state how many jobs to create.

“So, the key question that we ask regarding any government policy is how many jobs will this bring about, how many jobs it will create. And aside from that, there have also been several engagements with different policy bodies and ideas concerning job creation.”

He added that the government’s involvement must be in creating the enabling environment.

He enumerated some of the programmes specifically designed to create jobs saying, “you are probably aware of the current effort of the Presidential Economic Advisory Council which was launched recently – the National Poverty Reduction with Growth Strategy, which I have the privilege of chairing its Steering Committee.

This is another of the very broad plans of creating opportunities and more jobs.”

He also mentioned the Economic Sustainability Plan, an initiative he said has a major mandate to create jobs. He listed other initiatives such as the Food for Jobs programme, which has identified 5 million farmers, and the BVN numbers to give loans to these farmers.

He commended the management of the College, saying its research initiative has been “extremely useful in agitating the ideas, thoughts and policies that could influence the direction of government.”

“I really want to commend the resourceful and insightful work that has been done especially with this issue of job creation, as you can imagine, this is obviously one of the critical problems that we have as an economy and a nation,” he said.

In his remarks, the Commandant of the National Defence College, Rear Admiral Oladele Daji, said the presentation of the research report was in response to the request by the Vice President to look into job creation scenarios and strategy.

He noted that Course 29 of the College which comprised 96 participants across services within and outside the country, was presenting the report in fulfilment of the Higher Defence Management and Strategic Research.

In a separate development, the Vice President has commended the completion of the demutualisation of the stock exchange, calling it “a welcome development.”

He said this at the Presidential Villa while receiving in audience, the management of the Nigerian Exchange Limited led by its Chief Executive Officer, Temi Popoola.

Osinbajo also assured the management of the government’s support through policies to enable the company and the stock market to reach greater heights.

In his remarks, Popoola said the organisation has been repositioned for profit and to align to the tastes and preferences of the market.

He said under the new arrangement, the market will be opened up for more companies to be listed, resulting in more revenues for the government as listed companies pay more taxes and are more responsible for the environment they operate in.