Vice President Yemi Osinbajo says professors and academics must take a keen interest in issues of education and healthcare, exploring options for reform and innovation in those Human Capital Development sectors.
Osinbajo’s spokesman, Laolu Akande, in a statement on Monday in Abuja, said the vice president had a virtual meeting with a team of professors drawn from the six geo-political zones under the auspices of the Progressive Intellectuals Advisory Group (PIAG).
Osinbajo, who interacted with the dons on a number of topical national development issues, urged stakeholders especially members of professional bodies, to make contributions towards addressing them.
“Given the rate of interest in tertiary education, we cannot cope with the brick-and-mortar approach, we won’t be able to cope with the numbers in the near future because there will be millions more who will not be able to get into our schools.
He said one of the things he had always thought about was how to be deliberate about online tertiary education and how to develop it to the point where Nigeria offered the best services in the sector.
“One of the things I want us to think about is how we can develop this idea and in what ways we can put together a plan, even if it is just an outline so we can push the idea further.”
On healthcare, the vice president called on members of the group to support the Federal Government’s efforts to reform the healthcare system by contributing to ideas that would make health insurance work effectively in the country.
He said that a Health Reform Committee was already in place looking at the issues.
“The second thing is health care and how we can fund it, adding that it was evident the government, by budget alone, could not fund health care sufficiently and in the required scope
“No matter what we do and how hard we pushed, we still haven’t been able to get close to our Abuja Declaration threshold budget for healthcare, either at the federal or at the state level.
Osinbajo said it was evident that government needed to do something different and that was health insurance; it remained the way to aggregate or pull resources for healthcare.
“We now have a new health insurance law that makes health insurance compulsory and a few other provisions that are helpful; but I think that this is something that we have to take a good look at also.”
The vice president thanked the professors for their support in the race to the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential primaries, describing their backing as one that he greatly treasured above others.
According to Osinbajo, the group understands better his motivation for running and the motivation for the views he expressed.
He assured the academics of his commitment to the cause of a better Nigeria and promised not to give up the struggle.
Leader of the group and Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences, National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), Prof. Shehu Adamu, also spoke about the need for Nigeria to strengthen the Open and Distance Learning (ODL) option to address the issue of access to university education.
In separate remarks, Professors Nasiru Yauri, Philip Okolo, Ernest Ugbejeh and Yahaya Baba commended the vice president’s dedication to the development of Nigeria and style of leadership.
They said that the vice president remained deeply rooted in their hearts.
They said their support for Osinbajo’s aspiration for the presidential ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was premised on his track record and his ideas about transforming Nigeria, describing his loss as a missed opportunity.
The group pledged to work for the vice president in all of his future aspirations, promising to maintain the relationship regardless of the outcome of the APC primary elections.