8 2019 election not yet my concern–Osinbajo

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said that for now, the 2019 presidential election is not his concern. He emphasized that he was, at the moment, focused on doing the job he and President Muhammadu Buhari were elected to do in 2015.

The vice president said this during a media interaction he had on the last day of his participation at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Asked if he intended to run with President Buhari in 2019, Osinbajo responded thus: “I am absolutely focused at this time on doing the job that we have been elected to do. That is my concern for now.”

The vice president said the nation’s economy was much better now than it was two years ago, noting that the present administration had emphasised good governance, especially financial prudence.

“That is something in the past few years we haven’t seen. That is why we able to work with 60 per cent less revenue, that has improved. We are doing better in terms of managing our finances, and in terms of doing much more with far less.

“Our reserves are at $40billion, the highest it has been in 4 years. Our capital market is set to be the best performing in the world. We have moved up 24 places in the ease of doing business, agriculture is up by over 3 per cent. We are becoming a net producer of rice, 7 million to 11 million tonnes of paddy which has never happened before. We will be self-sufficient in rice production. Investments are also coming in, so economically I would say that we are doing very well. The critical thing is that the man on the streets must feel the impact, which sometimes takes a while, because when you are talking about growth, there must be jobs, but growth doesn’t immediately translate to jobs,” he said.

Asked what would be Nigeria’s response to the US call for a weaker dollar, Osinbajo said though “we are naturally concerned about currency issues everywhere. A weaker dollar does not necessarily hurt us [Nigeria]. We’re concerned most about ensuring our exports are cheaper. Our concern is how to make ourselves competitive with our foreign exchange.”