President Muhammadu Buhari has said focus on job creation, consistency in policy and innovation helped a lot in stimulating a five percent growth of the Nigerian economy in the second quarter of 2021, which is the highest in six years.

Buhari said this at the State House on Tuesday while speaking at the launch of the Nigeria Jubilee Fellows Programme.

The President’s assertion was contained in a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, titled ‘How we recorded biggest economic growth in six years – President Buhari’.

He said, “On Tuesday, 22nd June 2021, I set up the National Poverty Reduction with Growth Strategy steering committee to coordinate our work to fulfil my promise to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in ten years. This is building on the positive results from the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan and the targeted response to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic with the Economic Sustainability Plan.

“These efforts have yielded results with Nigeria recording its biggest economic growth in six years with a GDP growth of 5 per cent in the second quarter of 2021. The sectors that drove this growth are trade, telecommunications, transportation, electricity, agriculture and manufacturing. Each of these sectors showed significant improvement and thus created more jobs for our populace.

“An important part of our policies and strategies is the focus on employment and creating opportunities for our people. When this government was elected in 2015, we committed to increasing job opportunities for Nigerians and as part of our social investments programme we recruited 500,000 graduates into our N-power programme.”