Nigeria’s Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said if corruption is not eliminated, it may consume the current Republic. Osinbajo spoke in Abuja on Tuesday at the national conference on the role of legislature in the fight against corruption. In the speech made available to State House reporters Tuesday night by his spokesman Laolu Akande, Osinbajo stated: “I wish to emphasise that this should not be a finger-pointing exercise.
“What is required is a consensus of reasonable men and women who realize that the current path will destroy us all, that such a consensus will produce a coalition of the like-minded from the executive, the legislature and the judiciary, united by a common cause and proposition namely; that this Republic will fall and consume us all if we do not put in place a practical plan to clean up our crucial public and private institutions.
“For the majority of our citizens, the greed and mindless selfishness that portends corruption is bewildering. How do you explain how anyone can embezzle funds meant to equip soldiers for a war that could consume thousands and eventually all of us? Or how in the midst of so much want, how can some seize the treasury for themselves, their families and friends? And how can anyone argue after all of that, that all that is required and all that we need to pay attention to is the technicality of how such people are possibly arrested? A few subsidy scams consumed almost N5trn. When you consider that the budget is N6trn, the size, the scale of the damage is clear.”
