Vice President Kashim Shettima has called on Nigerians living in the United States to support the administration of President Bola Tinubu in its efforts to reposition the Nigerian economy.
Shettima made the call on Wednesday at the Nigeria House in New York during an interactive session with Nigerians in the diaspora.
In a statement signed on Thursday by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Communications, Stanley Nkwocha, the Vice President said the administration was focusing on education, healthcare, science and technology and agriculture, while seeking to leverage the expertise of Nigerians abroad.
Shettima said the government’s economic reforms were already producing tangible results, citing an increase in foreign reserves from $3.9bn to over $55bn and a 4.45 per cent growth recorded in the last quarter.
He said improvements in the exchange rate and foreign reserves would help protect diaspora remittances, stabilise the exchange rate and strengthen investments by Nigerians living abroad.
“When President Tinubu assumed office, he did not resort to trading blames and accusing his predecessor for the state of affairs of our nation. Rather, he took decisions that only a leader of courage and conviction would take,” Shettima said.
The Vice President also said more than 1.29 million Nigerian students in tertiary institutions had accessed N125bn through the Nigeria Education Loan Fund since its inception.
On security, Shettima said the government was deploying available resources to address the country’s security challenges, noting that such challenges were not peculiar to Nigeria.
He urged Nigerians to remain united, stressing that “whatever binds us together supersedes whatever divides us as a people.”
Shettima also assured Nigerians in the diaspora that the country remained open to business and investment, citing the Dangote Refinery as an example of recent economic progress.
