Vice President Yemi Osinbajo SAN presides over an Emergency National Economic Council Meeting at the Statehouse, Abuja. 14th Feb, 2023. Photos; Tolani Alli

*National Economic Council Endorses It

*It Captures a Lot of Expectations for Nigeria in the Future, Says Osinbajo

*Adds: Implementation is key

Rising from an emergency session and its first meeting this year, the National Economic Council (NEC) has endorsed “Nigeria Agenda 2050” designed to take the country through to Upper Middle-Income Country and subsequently to the status of High-Income countries.

At a meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, the Agenda 2050 was presented by the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning to State Governors and other members of NEC, including federal ministers.

Speaking after the presentation and discussion by Council members, Prof. Osinbajo observed that the plan “captures a lot of the expectations for Nigeria in the future and hopefully implementation which is key if effectively done.”

Also commenting on the Agenda 2050, the Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Agba said the Federal Government has taken unprecedented steps in ensuring the operationalization of the plan, especially with the inauguration of the Steering Committee of the National Development Plan by the VP.

Prof. Osinbajo had earlier yesterday inaugurated the Steering Committee of the National Development Plan.

On 9th September, 2020 the President inaugurated the National Steering Committee (NSC) for the preparation of the Medium-Term National Development Plan (MTNDP) 2021 – 2025 and Nigeria Agenda 2050.

Highlights of the Nigeria Agenda 2050 as presented to NEC is as follows:

*Nigeria Agenda 2050 is formulated against the backdrop of several subsisting development challenges in the country.

*These challenges include low, fragile, and non-inclusive economic growth; high population growth rate, pervasive insecurity, limited diversification, macroeconomic and social instability, low productivity and high import dependence.

*Nigeria Agenda 2050 is a perspective plan designed to transform the country into an “Upper-Middle Income Country”, with a significant improvement in per capita income.

*The plan aims to fully engage all resources, reduce poverty, achieve social and economic stability.

*It also targets developing a mechanism for achieving a sustainable environment consistent with global concerns about climate change.

*The plan therefore presents the road map for accelerated, sustained and broad-based growth and provides broad frameworks for reducing unemployment, poverty, inequality, and human deprivation.

Conclusion

Agenda 2050 is to help Nigeria attain her desire to successfully join the group of upper middle-income countries and subsequently to high-income group.

This requires significant improvement in the country’s per capita GDP which will be powered by rapid and sustained economic growth.

Nigeria’s long-term ambition is to improve its per capita GDP from about US$2,084.05 in 2020 to US$6,223.23 in 2030 and US$33,328.02 in 2050, with rapid and sustained economic growth, job creation and poverty reduction.

The Nigeria Agenda 2050 projects annual average real GDP growth of 7.0 percent.

The real growth rate of the GDP of the first medium-term NDP 2021-2025 on average will be 4.65 percent and this will increase to 8.01 percent in the second NDP; subsequently, it is expected to increase to 8.43 percent in the third.

Consequently, the number of full time jobs created will be roughly 165 million during the Agenda period to spur poverty reduction.

The number of people in poverty will decline from the roughly 83 million in 2020 to about 47.8 million in 2025 and to 2.1 million by 2050, thus taking a significant segment of the population out of poverty.