Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said yesterday that top officials of the present administration are under intense pressures from elites across the country to slow down the ongoing fight against corruption.
Speaking when a delegation from the Muslims Congress of Nigeria visited him in his office in Abuja, Osinbajo said, however, that the mounting pressures would not deter the administration from ridding the country of the problem of corruption.
The Vice President said “we get regular messages from some Nigerian elites saying cool down” on the fight against corruption.
“It is a very strange morality that some of those people have, very complicated but cutting across all tribes and religious differences…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,” he said.
Osinbajo said it’s unacceptable that in the last 16 years, there was no a single federal government completed road project.
He said 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 explains why money meant to procure arms were 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…Mr. President and I are extremely focussed on what we need to do, we will focus on critical things, infrastructure and social investments,” he said.
In his remarks, leader of the delegation, Imam Abdulahi Shuaib conveyed the support of the organization to the government in its programmes including anti-corruption, and expressed readiness to offer assistance.
The Vice President 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.
