Nigeria’s acting President Yemi Osinbajo has extolled the virtues of hard work, while addressing civil servants.

Mr Osinbajo, who is standing in for President Muhammadu Buhari, said he was speaking as a public servant himself and told them that they had a “special burden” to improve the lives of Nigerians.

With that in mind he implored them to work harder:

Nigeria Tweet

He said that the slowness of the civil service operations can affect the country’s economy:

Every time that a public officer is an obstacle to business in any way he attacks the prosperity of our economy and he attacks our future, it means our children cannot find jobs.”

Figures out this week confirmed that Nigeria’s economy is still in recession after having experienced the fifth successive quarter of negative growth.