Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said Tuesday that it would be callous and irresponsible if the executive and legislative arms of government fail to work together to sort out the life threatening problems the people of the country face on daily basis.
Osinbajo said this in a closing remarks at the Executive/Legislative retreat held at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
He said the context within which the arms of government operate is important, stressing that given the situation in the country, it would be callous and irresponsible if the different arms of government don’t work together to resolve the country’s current problems.
“The fact that we have all been here for two working days demonstrates our common commitment to collaboration.
“Frankly, we have no choice if we are not to fail the Nigerian people who have given us this incredible opportunity amongst millions of our compatriots to serve at this high leadership levels we occupy today.
“This is the context for our operations. Let me say that every generation of leadership must understand context. Law itself must be interpreted and implemented in context. What is the reality of the context that we operate in today? We all know, our nation has millions of extremely poor people, the Covid 19 pandemic has worsened employment and poverty.
“We have huge deficits in infrastructure, many children are out of school. If that is our context we will be callous and irresponsible if we don’t come together, work together to sort out these grave life threatening problems our people have to confront everyday.
“The dogmatic emphasis on procedural niceties is a luxury we cannot afford. In any event, there is no pure practice of the doctrine of separation of powers. The Anglo American traditions that we hold on to in support of the separation of powers are not pure…so for example the US Vice President serves as the president of the Senate and presides over the Senate’s daily proceedings,” he said.
