Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said that nobody has the right to pocket public funds and described corruption as inimical to national development.
He made this remark at the State House Thursday night when Yoruba traditional rulers in the northern states and Abuja, paid him a courtesy visit at the State House, a statement by his spokesman, Laolu Akande, said yesterday.
The vice president said all Nigerians should uphold truth and justice for the country to make progress in the ongoing anti-corruption war, stressing that no nation in the world became great through corruption.
“The history of the world shows that corruption has ruined many empires. When those empires attain greatness and they begin to allow corruption, then they collapse”, he said.
Reiterating the All Progressives Congress-led federal government’s commitment to fighting graft, Osinbajo said: “President Muhammadu Buhari has committed this current government to a pathway of integrity. For the first time, I think in a very long time, the president is saying that this country can only move forward if we show ourselves as men and women of integrity”.
He also asked Nigerians not to give the ongoing crusade against corruption any ethnic colouration, saying: “When there’s a fight against corruption, it’s not an ethnic battle. People can come up with all sorts of things and say it’s selective. People say why a man is being tried for corruption is because he’s a Yoruba man, or he’s from the north or from the south. We must not encourage those kinds of ideas. If a person steals, he ought to be punished and he ought to return what he has stolen because the money doesn’t belong to him. The money is to be used for training our young people in school and for building roads”.
Osinbajo, who said the Yoruba’s belief in Nigeria’s unity was commendable, however, noted: “There is no family in Yoruba land that allows thieves. If you’re a thief, we’ll expose you. And we should support the effort of the administration to fight corruption”.
