"Recession will end soon," - Vice President assures Nigerians

Professor Yemi Osinbajo assured Nigerians that the current economic recession facing the country would soon be a thing of the past.

The vice president made this statement while reacting to a prediction by Olisa Agbakoba (SAN) that the current recession may last until 2020.

Osinbajo who spoke at the 8th convocation of the Redeemer’s University in Osun state on Thursday, September 9, 2016, blamed the current economic situation on the drop in the price of crude oil prices and activities of militants in the Niger Delta.

He expressed optimism that the recession period would end very soon adding that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration was focused on taking measures to revive the economy.

“As far as we are concerned and so far as all of us who are working seriously hard are concerned, the recession must be short-lived," he said.

“The reason is that as of February last year, we were generating 5,000 megawatts of power and that was the highest ever in the history of this country and that same month the vandalism of the pipelines started. So, we lost 60 percent of gas and 60 percent of revenue.

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“There is nowhere in the world, there is no economy in the world that can lose 60 percent of its revenue and will not go into some sort of recession which is actually what has happened to us in this country.

“Once we are able to resolve these issues concerning pipeline vandalism and the diversification of the economy we are working towards, things will change for the better.

“We have all it takes to be a great country. I am quite convinced that the problems we are seeing today will quickly disappear as long as we understand why we are where we are today.

“We are working towards regaining our products locally. We are investing more in refineries and private investors are coming into refineries as well. If we are able to do this, 70 percent of what we import will not be imported again, hence our foreign reserves will be maintained and if it is maintained, our currency will improve," the vice president added.

Meanwhile, the federal government has disclosed plans to reduce the number of aircraft in the presidential fleet.

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