Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo says Nigeria’s main endowment as a country “is neither crude oil nor any other mineral resource, rather our people.”
According to a statement on Sunday by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Laolu Akande, the Vice-President spoke while delivering the keynote address at the 111th Founders’ Day Lecture of King’s College, Lagos virtually.
Akande, in the statement titled, ‘Teaching young people integrity, innovation and hard work is the foundation of a good society,’ said Osinbajo also noted that the country’s economic aspirations and capacity to compete in the global economy depend on “how effectively we empower our people to fulfill their potential.”
He quoted Osinbajo as also stressing the need to focus on productivity, character and civic education, as well as the need to “change both the substance of education and the methods of educating our children.”
The vice president stressed the need to teach young people that there were huge rewards for creativity, innovation with a culture of integrity in business and personal life, coupled with hard work and diligence.
These, he said, were the foundations of a good and prosperous society.
“When people are nurtured in the notion that rent seeking or the prebendal capture of wealth or benefit by access to power is the path to success, then the society will not prosper.
“A few will capture all the resources, everyone else will be poor or on their way there,” Osinbajo said.
