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Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo says whenever he wants to sack a public
official that has been found to be corrupt, he gets many calls from
religious and political leaders not to do so.
Speaking on at 24th Nigerian Economic Summit plenary on corruption and
rule of law, in Abuja on Monday, the vice-president said the Nigerian
elite are often times in the way of getting rid of a corrupt official.
Ngaire Woods, the founding dean of Blavatnik School of Government at
Oxford University, who moderated the plenary asked Ossinbajo to tell the
summit who calls him when he wants to sack someone corrupt.
In his response, Osinbajo said: “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.”
The vice-president said the government is doing so much to tackle grand
corruption and systemic corruption; stating that since he became
vice-president, he has seen how much impact corruption can have on a
country — and its more than he ever imagined.
Osinbajo, who was commissioner of justice and attorney general in Lagos
state for eight years, said one of the most frustrating parts of the fight
against corruption for him is the slow pace of prosecution.
He, however, added that the two conviction of former executive governors
secured by the federal government has shown that the hand of justice may
be slow, but it would eventually catch up.
The professor of law said reforms are important, and the federal
government has embarked on a number of them, including the criminal
justice reform, but the federal government cannot reform state
judiciaries.
The vice-president sacked Lawal Daura, former director general of the
Department of State Services (DSS).
He was also involved in the suspension of Ayo Oke, former director general
of National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and Babachir Lawal, former secretary
to the government of the federation (SGF).