The Federal Government’s policies and programmes aimed at promoting financial inclusion remain key to the actualization of President Muhammadu Buhari’s promise of lifting millions of Nigerians out of poverty, according to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, SAN.

Prof. Osinbajo stated this in Abuja on Tuesday at the opening session of the 2019 Annual Conference of Chartered Institute of Bankers.

He was referring to the President’s June 12 speech where he stated that “we are working to lift Nigerians out of poverty and set them on the path to prosperity. We intend to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty over the next 10 years”.

According to the Vice President, “Financial inclusion of course is the key to realizing so much of what we expect as an economy and the President promised in his June 12 speech to lift 100 million people out of poverty in ten years, that is the commitment of the government of Nigeria.

“We started that journey with our collaboration with the Bank of Industry to deliver the GEEP programme, better known as TraderMoni and MarketMoni by providing microcredit to almost 2 million petty traders. The Bank of Industry has now brought this huge bottom of the pyramid into the formal financial system and that has been recognized worldwide. Recently the programme won the AfDB prize for financial inclusion because of the work that was done with TraderMoni. This is a huge task.

“Going forward, we now need to embark on financial training for all of those who have been brought into the net. As you know, when they’re given N10, 000 and they pay back, they are given N15, 000, N20, 000 and it goes all the way. But at that point they’re given their BVNs, they’re formally included in the financial system, they’re formally included as formal traders, and so we are able to give them financial training and all that.”

Continuing, the Vice President said “…for very long, that bottom of the pyramid has been completely excluded and yet informal trade is a significant part of trading that is going on in our country.
https://infonet24.com.ng/how-president-buhari-plans-to-lift-millions-out-of-poverty-osinbajo/