Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari is under pressure from the elite to slow down the fight against corruption.
This was contained in a statement issued yesterday by the Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Laolu Akande.
The statement quoted the vice president as saying that pressure from some Nigerian elite to slow down the ongoing fight against graft would not deter the Buhari presidency from ridding the country of the problem of corruption.
“We get regular messages from some Nigerian elite saying cool down,” the vice-president disclosed the pressures on the presidency to relent in the anti-corruption fight, during a meeting yesterday in his office with a delegation from the Moslem Congress of Nigeria.
Osinbajo said: “It is a very strange morality that some of those people have very complicated but cutting across all tribes and religious differences.”
But Osinbajo noted that the Nigerian people on the contrary had a clearer understanding of right and wrong.
According to him, “The masses don’t have that problem.”
Although some elites are saying “it is not a big deal,” and that government should merely ask the looters of the commonwealth of the nation to return the money and go, Osinbajo expressed gladness that “a new tribe of Nigerians who would not compromise their values but would maintain a sense of right and wrong is now emerging.
“The man on the street is very clear, so whatever some of these elites say, we shall keep our focus on the masses who voted for us,” the vice president declared.
He said it was simply unacceptable that in the last 16 years there was not a single federal government completed road project, let alone rail.
“The reason is corruption,” he said, adding that the cost of projects were often inflated as people entrusted with public trust struggle to enrich themselves at the expense of the people.
He said it was the same inordinate desire for enrichment that explained why money meant to procure arms were being distributed among persons at a time when the territorial integrity of the nation was being attacked.
“The insurgency has gone on for six years because government could not adequately equip the military,” he stated
But the vice-president assured Nigerians that President Buhari and himself would not relent.
He said the president and himself have no other agenda them “the progress of this country.”
Osibanjo said the prresident and him self were extremely focussed on what they needed to do.
“We will focus on critical things, infrastructure and social investments,” he said.
Speaking earlier, the leader of the delegation from the Moslem Congress of Nigeria, Imam Abdulahi Shuaib, conveyed the support of the organisation to the government in its programmes including anti-corruption, and expressed readiness to offer assistance.
He said: “We are thankful that our candidates of choice in the election emerged.”
Shuaib said the choice of the president and his deputy were made by God Himself during last year’s presidential election.
The statement said Osinbajo also received delegations from the Nigeria Society of Engineers (NSE) and the Facility for Oil Sector Transparency Reform (FOSTER), a group composed of NGOs involved in different issues in the Niger Delta areas.
At his courtesy meeting with the NSE, Osinbajo praised the engineers and highlighted the importance of the profession in national development.
“There is no question at all that engineers are central to the development of the society,” he noted.
The NSE delegation was led by its President, Mr. Otis Anyaeji.
Speaking earlier while receiving FOSTER, the vice president restated the government’s commitment to the development of the Niger Delta.