Vice President Yemi Osibajo, on Wednesday called for collaboration among the executive, legislature and judiciary to ensure coordinated administration of justice system and the fight against corruption in Nigeria.
Osibajo, who was speaking at the opening of a capacity building workshop jointly organized by the Economic & Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the National Judicial Institute (NJI), lamented that corruption remains Nigeria’s greatest challenge.
This, he noted, was clearly demonstrated barely “two weeks before the (2015 general) elections when cash in excess of N100bn and over $250m, was released in a few days ostensibly for security purposes.
“The aggregate sum released was more than some States earned in a whole year. That is the enormity of the embezzlement that we are talking about,” the Vice President lamented, blaming such for the reason why the nation was unable to build any major new roads or infrastructure in the last six years at a time crude oil sold above $100 per barrel.
This, he noted, was why the Boko Haram menace festered helplessly in the North East because billions of US$ meant for purchase of arms by the military was embezzled, identifying another ready example of the evil of corruption in national life as the case of GAVI, the global fund for provision of vaccines for the poorest in developing countries, which stopped providing funds to Nigeria over “alleged mismanagement of funds by the Ministry of Health officials between 2011 and 2013.”
Even when the millions of beneficiaries across the country could not be served, resulting in dire consequences in many case, he lamented that “Nigeria had to refund $2.2million. These were vaccines and drugs meant to fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria, amongst the poorest of the poor of our country.”
Beneficiaries of corrupt enrichment, Osinbajo stressed, today use their enormous resources “to subvert justice, to bribe pliable senior government officials, to bribe in some cases judicial officers, to subvert the legislative process and, of course, even to subvert the press.
“The problem with corruption is that it is a cancer. It may be terminal if not checked. The failure of African States, civil wars and destruction of lives and livelihoods, is the result of failure of institutions largely caused by endemic systemic corruption.”
The three arms of government, he continued, must therefore work together “as a patriotic gesture to rescue our nation from looming disaster.”
There is no difference between terrorism, homicide and corruption cases, he continued, adding that “the misery and loss of lives on account of corruption far exceeds that of any other single crime. There is no question at all that if you look at the extent of damage caused by corruption, it surely is a crime against humanity without a doubt. If you look at the sheer loss of lives on account of what we’ve seen even in our own country, there is no question at all that it is possibly the worst sort of crime that can be committed.