The Vice President of the country, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, has said that sometimes it’s the elite that stand in the way in the fight against corruption.
He was speaking at the 24th Nigerian Economic Summit plenary on corruption and rule of law, in Abuja on Monday
The moderator, Ngaire Woods, the founding dean of Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University, asked who the people were.
Osinbajo stated that he was usually inundated with phone calls from the elite including religious and political leaders whenever he wanted to sack a corrupt official.
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“I would like to refer to the Nigerian elite, and it’s probably not fair to be that broad, but practically, every segment, because people who have access to you, they could be political leaders, religious leaders, business leaders, whoever has access to you.
“We have a system where people just feel like, ‘why don’t you just give this guy a break?’ Which again is part of the problem. You don’t get one call, you get several calls.”
Osinbajo said that the government is fighting seriously against corruption and that it was a slugfest.
The former commissioner of justice and attorney general in Lagos state also said that his biggest peeve with the justice system in terms of corruption is the slow pace of prosecution.
He is optimistic, however, as the convictions of former executive governors secured by the federal government means there’s hope yet.
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