Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said Wednesday that the President Muhammadu Buhari administration is pushing for the growth of technology hubs and start-up businesses because they are the future of Nigeria.

Professor Osinbajo stated this when he visited the Ventures Park, Abuja, with the UK Minister for Africa, Harriet Baldwin.

“Technology, especially the startups that we are seeing, is the future of business in Nigeria and will lead us to the Nigerian business revolution,” the vice president said.

He said technology is the way to go and noted that most of the start-ups at the Ventures Park began during the period Nigeria was in recession and proved by the number of jobs they created that the “it is the future starting today.”

He said one of the ways the President Muhammadu Buhari administration has encouraged technology companies was by setting up the Creativity and Technology Advisory Group as part of the Industrial Council.

He said: “Many of these young start ups are members of that creativity and advisory group, where they help to formulate policies with federal government policy makers.  They help us to formulate policies, especially in these new areas like in Fintech, where we need to formulate new policies.”

On plans of the administration for the economy as Nigeria goes into the election year, the vice president said the micro-credit that government was expecting the growth figures to do better in the next three months.

He said the micro-credit that the administration was giving to the bottom of the pyramid would speed up growth.

“We are giving up micro-credit to two million people who are essentially traders, micro traders and giving them credit obviously improves their inventory, improves their capacity to do business and to earn more,” he said.

In her remarks, the UK Minister for Africa, Harriet Baldwin, announced that the UK, through its  Department for International Development, DFID, “a new £70million programme that would create some 100,000 jobs and raise income three million people in some of the poorest parts of Nigeria.

She said her team was delighted to see the energy that exists in Nigeria and to see the strength of the link between Nigeria and the UK.

She pledged the commitment of her the UK government to strengthening the bi-lateral relationship between Nigeria and the UK.

She said her team, which included investors, was in Nigeria to talk about the technology links between Nigeria and the UK.