Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has revealed that the All Progressives Congress (APC) manifesto was drafted at the residence of Prof Pat Utomi in 2014.
The Vice President who disclosed this at the 5th edition of Airtel
Touching Lives in Lagos, said they included a social safety initiative
to specifically address poverty, among other things in the party’s
manifesto.
A statement released by Osinbajo’s Senior Special Adviser on media and publicity, Laolu Akande reads;
“Listening to each story of a life touched this evening must remind
us of the many others who need our help, our comfort and our kindness.
The poor and vulnerable always need a voice.“In 2014, Mr Wale Edun, Prof. Pat Utomi and I met at Pat’s home to write portions of the manifesto of the APC.
“We all agreed that a fundamental pillar of our party’s plans must be
to create a social safety net for the people. We were convinced that
government owed a duty to the poor, the weak, the vulnerable and those
who cannot work.“Social safety nets are not merely acts of sovereign kindness; they are a sovereign obligation – a responsibility.”
Also speaking on the feeding programme initiated by the Buhari-led
administration, Osinbajo said it has had an impact on 9.5 million
children. He also revealed that 2.2 million petty traders have also
gotten loans from the Social Investment Programmes.
He added;
“Today, the social safety net scheme is the fore of our Social
Investment Programmes where we are feeding about 9.5 million children in
public schools in 34 states across Nigeria; we are giving monthly cash
to about nearly a million households as part of our conditional cash
transfer scheme; we have given, as at the last count, 2.2 million loans
to petty traders whose inventories are no more than N5, 000.“We have also engaged about 500, 000 young men and women, who have
been unemployed (over different periods of time) under our N-Power
programme. But we are still very far from touching majority of those who
need help.“It is clear that to do so, we need far more resources behind that
programme. This is why the work of social conscious companies like
Airtel is so vital. Bridging the huge gap between what government can do
and what is left to be done.”