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We're Using Common Sense Approach, Osinbajo Says About FG’s Economic Strategy

“You can’t have this number of poor people that we have and expect that industries, manufacturing and others will develop faster to cater for everyone. So, there must be social safety nets. For us, it is a common sense approach and we are looking at the happiness of the greatest number of our people," Osinbajo stated.

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Professor Yemi Osinbajo, Nigeria’s Vice-President, has said the Federal Government is using the common sense approach to solve the country’s economic problems.

He stated this at the 2018 Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) in Abuja, on Tuesday, while responding to a question on government's plan to diversify the economy, noting that the Federal Government would rather not be restricted by a single economic ideology.

He said: “Basically, we are concerned about ensuring that the market works; that the price mechanism is the basis for determining how value moves. But also, whenever state intervention is required, the state must intervene. For example, the social investment programme we have is a state intervention.

“You can’t have this number of poor people that we have and expect that industries, manufacturing and others will develop faster to cater for everyone. So, there must be social safety nets. For us, it is a common sense approach and we are looking at the happiness of the greatest number of our people; how the bulk of our people can live prosperously.”

The vice-president, who is also the Chairman of the Federal Government’s Economic Management Team (EMT), said the government is reluctant about sticking to one ideology because of the need for flexibility in economic policies.

He said: “Everyone knows that at some point, there was SAP (Structural Adjustment Policy) and all of the different models of the Washington Consensus, but today, every one of those things have been proved wrong in one way or the other."

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Economy