Nigeria’s vice president, Yemi Osinbajo, has regretted that several things which the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari should to have done to lessen the sufferings of Nigerians from the present economic chaos could not be implemented due to massive stealing and the depletion of Nigeria’s foreign reserves.
He also noted that the decision to increase the pump price of petrol from N86 per litre to N145 was a tough one for the President.
Osinbajo disclosed this while addressing a gathering at the Sheraton Hotels and Towers, Abuja, during the public presentation of a book ‘Anatomy of Corruption in Nigeria, Issues, Challenges and Solution’ written by Alhaji Yusuf Alli (SAN).
According to the vice president, “I want to just quickly say that corruption as we all know is not just a social evil, it is an existential threat to our country. There is no doubt at all that unlike in other countries, people say there is corruption everywhere which is true, but I think there is one distinguishing feature for Nigeria and for many other country, it is that it is a threat that directly affects the lives and livelihood of everyone.”
“It is not just an evil, it is not just an immorality, it is existential because it could truly destroy lives and it has destroyed many lives and has continued to destroy the Nigerian economy.
“And I think that the reasons are very obvious if you just take a clear example. All through the period when Nigeria was earning huge sums of money as proceeds from oil sales for almost five years, the external reserves of Nigeria remains much the same.
“It did not increase at all despite the high earning, now we know also that we are investigating cases which showed that over $15 billion was lost in one type of contract alone. We are not talking of oil contract, we are talking of security-related contracts, $15 billion. We have not talked at all of oil contracts in several billions.”
