Acting President Yemi Osinbajo has said the federal government must brace up to fulfill the aspirations of Nigerians and stop giving excuses.
Osinbajo said government officials at all levels must roll their sleeves and make the necessary sacrifices required to change the country for the better.
The Acting President spoke on Thursday at the Cabinet Retreat on the Economic Recovery Growth Plan (ERGP) and the 2018 Budget preparation.
A former top official of the Malaysian government, Dr Idris Jala, was the guest speaker at the occasion held at the State House, Abuja.
Osinbajo aligned himself with the lecture given by the guest speaker, saying: “But seriously he is so right, the challenge is this, the discipline to be reasonable in our targets and objectives. The discipline to accept to be locked in a room for as long as it takes to iron out what it is that needs to be done.”
He continued: “I like the point also that Dr Jala made that excuses will no longer work here, the Nigerian factor, or some say exceptionalism, or the acceptance of failure before you even start is certainly not tenable any more.
We simply have to accept that there is nothing Nigerian about failure, because as we know 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.
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 these labs. We must see to it that this works.”
The retreat was attended by ministers and top government officials.
