By Abdullahi M. Gulloma Abuja
Th e Senior Special Assistant to the President on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Princess Adejoke OrelopeAdefulire, said the federal government would establish a Presidential Council for the SDGs to provide high-level policy guidance, leadership and direction for the realisation of the development targets. Orelope-Adefulire made the disclosure at the ongoing United Nations High-Level Political Forum in New York, while presenting Nigeria’s Voluntary National Review on the Implementation of the 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals, on behalf of President Muhammadu Buhari.
She said the process for the establishment of the Presidential Council had already started, adding that two standing committees on the SDGs had been established in both the Senate and the House of Representatives to enhance the legislative and oversight roles of the parliament. Orelope-Adefulire told the UN forum that the Nigerian government remained undeterred in making the required progress in achieving the laudable goals of the SDGs in spite of the challenges of an already ebbing recession, largely degraded crisis in the North-East, and resolving militancy in the Niger-Delta.
She said some of the government’s ongoing propoor and pro-development interventions like the Social Investment Scheme targeted at the extremely poor and vulnerable, Home Grown School Feeding Programme for public school children, Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme for unemployed youths and the Women Economic Empowerment programme had made impacts in the fi ght against poverty.
She also listed the N-Power Programme for job creation for the youths and the Conditional Grant Scheme as part of the federal government’s eff orts to ameliorate the condition of its citizenry. “I wish to reaffi rm that Nigeria has clearly defi ned her path to the 2030 Agenda. We count on the strong patriotism and goodwill of the citizenry, the commitment of the stakeholders as well as the support from the global fraternity of nations to ensure that no Nigerian is left behind,” she said.
