Nigeria’s Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, on Friday, said members of the high-powered Presidential Economic Sustainability Committee, which he heads, are concerned about ensuring that the nation’s economy remains stable during the lockdown occasioned by the spread of the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic across the globe.
The committee, he told a journalist while emerging from a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, is aware that “many of our people work for a daily wage, they have to go out to work, so we have to think in terms of how to ensure that we are able to give them some succour during the period when they are not able to work.”
In a statement by Laolu Akande, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Office of the Vice President, Osinbajo stressed that “Mr. President asked me to meet with him, in particular, to resolve some of the pressing issues around COVID-19 and also around the economic problems that we are seeing already.”
Osinbajo said the meeting was to brief the President, as it is usual, physically, through phone calls or by video conference, adding that effects of the lockdown, especially on ordinary Nigerians were among issues discussed.
The Economic Sustainability Committee, he assured, will soon submit a full report to Mr. President on its thoughts and ideas, including how to ensure “that jobs are protected, and if possible, more jobs are created. We are very concerned about that and the President has expressed very serious concerns about the problems that may be associated with the lockdown.”
Also commenting on the outcome of the meeting via his personal twitter handle, the President acknowledged the briefing by Osinbajo “on the work of the Economic Sustainability Committee, which I recently set up, and which he chairs.
“The Committee is working on an appropriate economic response to the unfolding impact of the COVID-19 pandemic,” he assured.

Pix caption: Vice President Osinbajo (left) briefing President Buhari on Friday in his office.