Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has pledged the support of the Federal Government and the National Economic Council (NEC) in the establishment of a Social Innovation and Research Institute (SIRI), an initiative of NEHIH aimed at developing skills and building capacity for social innovation in he North East.

This was contained in a statement by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media & Publicity Office of the Vice President, Laolu Akande.

According to the statement, Osinbajo said his during a virtual meeting with management of the NEHIH.

The Vice President noted that idea of establishing a centre for social innovation as conceived by the NEHIH was good, emphasizing that “I don’t think there is enough attention being paid to the local needs of social innovation. I really think that this proposed institute can do enough in terms of capacity building and leveraging on ideas. And also making a lot of the innovations relevant to our demands and needs here in Nigeria.”

Prof. Osinbajo added that “part of the work I think SIRI might end up doing is in looking at our peculiar humanitarian condition, because the humanitarian condition that we find ourselves in Nigeria is enormous, a huge one.

“So, there is an opportunity here to teach the rest of the world how to deal with this, especially from the point of view of education of children in conflict situations, and even entrepreneurship in conflict situation.”

Other participants at the meeting include the coordinator of the Hub, Mr. Ahmad Moddibo, the SIRI project coordinator at the hub, Nguveren Mary, among others.