Nigeria can’t grow without investment in education, health – Dangote

President Dangote Foundation, Mr. Aliko Dangote, said yesterday that the country “cannot truly compete globally without massive investments in the health, education and opportunities for the people.
” Dangote said this at the expanded National Economic Council (NEC) meeting on Investment in Human Capital in Abuja chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
He said investment in health, education, human capital development and critical areas like infrastructure would make the country richer.
Responding, Osinbajo said grand corruption in the previous administration prevented investments in healthcare and education and infrastructure.
He said high oil prices and economic growth of previous years had failed to translate into a better life for most Nigerians, and shamelessly robbed government policies of most of its intended impacts.
He said, however, the present administration was determined to rewrite the country’s story for the better.
“To put Nigeria’s money to work for Nigerians is doing the most with the least.
And we have stayed true to that vision, even as oil prices went into freefall, we ramped up investments in infrastructure, as well as our social spending,” he said.
According to him, not only is the administration painfully aware of the issues facing the country, it is prepared to take challenges the Dangote Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have outlined head-on.
He said the country had “a very strong economic growth and development ambitions encapsulated in the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan which was launched in 2017.
” “And for that effort to be meaningful and productive it has to come from people who are healthy, educated, and who are, and feel empowered.
It is this realisation that has helped ensure that one of the primary planks of the ERGP is ‘Investing in our people.
’ “And it is for this reason that we are expanding the reach and quality of our healthcare, through the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS); and working to guarantee basic education for all persons, whilst also upgrading and modernising the quality of secondary and post-secondary education.
“And because this is the 21st century, we know that is also important to ensure that our young people are being prepared for the economies of the future, not the past.
This means that STEM education is critical, and that technology must lie at the heart of every one of o ur educational offerings,” he said.