Nigeria’s Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, said on Thursday that
the battle against corruption by the present administration had no
ethnic agenda.
He said this when traditional rulers of the Yoruba
extraction in Northern Nigeria and Abuja paid him a courtesy visit at
the state House.
According to him, there is no country in the
world that had become great through corruption, adding that corruption
always fought back when being battled.
He said Nigerians should
discard such notions and embrace the virtue that a corrupt person should
be made to account for his misdeeds.
“You hear people saying that
the reason that man is being tried for corruption is because he is
Yoruba, he is from the North, and he is from South South.
“We must
not encourage those kinds of ideas. If a person steals, he ought to be
punished and made to return what he has stolen because the money does
not belong to him.
“The money is what is to be used for the
training of our young people, who are in school or hospital and for the
building of roads,” he said.
According to Osinbajo, nobody has the
right to pocket public money, adding that if that is allowed, it will
destroy the future which belongs to the children.
The Vice President said the Yoruba believe in the unity of the country and that anywhere they reside is home .
He
said the president had committed the country to the pathway of
integrity and that there was need for each person to stand up for the
truth and justice.
He reminded people of the culture that anyone who stole in his land was ostracized and used as an example.
“There
is no family in Yoruba land that allows thieves. If you are a thief, we
will expose you. We should support the effort of the administration to
fight corruption,” he said.
In his speech, the chairman of the
Yoruba traditional rulers in the North and Abuja, Chief Mohammed
Arigbabuwo, assured the vice president of their support to the
administration.
The traditional ruler commended the fight against
corruption and insurgency and urged the government to provide employment
to jobless youth.
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