Excuses no longer tenable - Osinbajo

Acting President Yemi Osinbajo on Thursday said that the Buhari administration will no longer accept excuses that suggest that delivering sustainable socio-economic development to Nigerians is not attainable.


He spoke at the Cabinet Retreat on the Economic Recovery Growth Plan (ERGP) and the 2018 Budget preparation at the State House, Abuja.

The Retreat featured guest speakers including Dr Idris Jala, a former top official of the Malaysian government.

In his response to Jala’s sppeach, Osinbajo said “we simply have to accept that there is nothing Nigerian about failure.”

“In our personal lives, failure and success are commodities on offer to everyone all over the world and every individual and every country makes a choice of which to buy and I will say on our behalf that we will choose success.”

While commending Jala’s presentation, the Acting President said “the challenge is this, the discipline to be unreasonable in our targets and objectives.”

“The discipline of attending the labs diligently and accepting to be locked in a room for as long as it takes to iron out what it is that needs to be done.

“Dr Jala I have heard motivational speeches, but this is one I think that challenges our whole legitimacy as persons entrusted with leadership.

“I think it goes beyond motivational speech, I think it really challenges the core of our relevance as leaders and I am challenged and I know that many of us here are and I think that we will do what we need to do to make sure that we see through the labs that we have to identify specific areas where we will do this labs. We must see to it that this works.”