Vice President Yemi Osinbajo says value addition is an overriding component of achieving economic growth.
Osinbajo expressed this view while featuring in a conversion session of the closing of the 27th Nigeria Economic Summit on Tuesday in Abuja.
The theme of the summit is, “Securing Our Future: The Fierce Urgency of Now.’’
The vice president, who responded to a question on how the Nigerian economy could achieve a double-digit growth, said value addition as opposed to selling raw materials, was critical.
“But some of the key issues that I think we should look at are, first, the very notion of a productive economy; an economy that is focused on productivity and all that enables productivity and you will find immediately that there will be constraints.
“For example population growth; at the rate we are going; population growth is also an issue; especially where productivity is not matching population growth at all.
“Now, that population also requires education; of course, we all know that a vast majority of our population is young people but that is also the strength of nation; the strength of our economy.
“So, education is a crucial part of being able to grow our economy; relevant education; education that emphasises critical analysis; that emphasises collaboration which are some of the critical issues today.’’
He said that there was need for an education that also emphasised technology and addressed the questions around gender equality as well.
Osinbajo argued that if half of the population was not productive on the account of lack of education or getting married too early, productivity was already constrained from the beginning.
He said the entire population must be committed to the objective of productivity; hence the need to the issue seriously.
“There is also the whole range of human capacity development; healthcare; ensuring that people are healthy and are able to be productive and that they have access to health and all of those things.
“So, I think that there so many components of productivity; but I think that the overriding thing for me is the whole question of an economy that focuses of value-addition as opposed to just selling raw materials or selling oil without the value addition that is required.
“And some times, the questions that arise around value addition and people as how do add value in an economy where you require power; you need to import a lot of the components and all that.
“But then, there are some incredible examples of even where people have power constraints even India and countries like that which have power constraints.
“These are cost issues; yes, with improved power, you can actually produce cheaper but this should not be a hindrance,” he said.
