Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said that President Muhammadu Buhari is ready to put everything on the line to make Nigeria great.
He said this when he received a delegation of Christian Ministers Welfare Initiative, also known as the Pastors’ Forum, Taraba State, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja on Thursday.
According to him, President Buhari has no other objective other than seeing this dream come true. “This morning, I had a meeting with the President and he repeated to me twice, he said ‘at my age there is only one thing I am looking for; I want to see a great Nigeria’.
“He has no other objective and I feel very inspired by that,” Prof Osinbajo said. Osinbajo restated the commitment of the President and himself to a great Nigeria where peace and justice would reign, saying “it is madness for anybody in our position to be looking for money”.
According to him, God puts people in a position of authority for them to be able to do something for their people. “I think if any Nigerian gets the chance to be president of the country, there is nothing he/she is looking for anymore except that while there you improve the lot of the people,” he added. Linking the economic situation to corruption and official graft, Osinbajo said “no economy can tolerate the level of corruption seen in Nigeria without the consequence.
“Nigerian lives were being lost and yet people cannot account for $15 billion meant for purchase of security equipment to fight the insurgents.” Besides, the Vice President Vice also explained how the factor of vandalism of oil installations had contributed to the recession being experienced.
He said Nigeria had lost several millions of barrels of crude oil due to the activities of the militants in the Niger Delta. He recalled that by early 2016 the country was producing 5,000MW of power for the first time, but by February 2016 the Focados terminal was destroyed by militants. He said, however, that 40 per cent of the gas used to fire the power plants were lost and the country was down to 2,500MW of power.
According to him, at the time the militants started blowing up oil and gas installations, the amnesty stipends were still being paid. “Nothing changed, the only reason is that we are investigating people who have stolen money.” He added that the country was losing one million barrels of oil a day, equivalent to 60 per cent of the country’s revenues.
Accordingly, he noted that there is nowhere such amount of revenue is lost without going into some economic challenge like a recession. He expressed optimism that the country would come out of the recession as “there is no question at all; God has a reason for bringing us in at this time. “And God helping us we will see a change in this country.” Osinbajo urged the Church and all religious leaders to stand up against corruption, stressing that if the government was doing the right thing by fighting corruption the Church should support it.
He assured that the Federal Government was working very seriously to end the problem of ravaging herdsmen. He said the oresident had instructed the police and the military to act and deal with anybody who unlawfully carried arms.
The Vice President urged that anybody with early information or intelligence on such violent activities should give it to government and the security agents for effective response. While calling on honest and forthright men in the country to work together, Osinbajo said God had structured Nigeria in such a way that no one could dominate another, not Muslims against Christians or Christians against Muslims.
“It is not possible for one tribe to dominate another based on the way God has structured the country. “The reason we have Christian president and Muslim vice president or Muslim president and Christian vice president is to have balance,” he said. Earlier, the Chairman of the delegation, Rev, Godwin Nyiekule, said the delegation was in the State House to pledge their support to the Buhari Administration for its forthrightness and fight against corruption. “We are happy with the government for the war against corruption crusade,” Nyiekule said. Nyiekule also said that the Christian Ministers Welfare Initiative is a non-partisan group but supports good persons who want to participate in government. He also called on the Federal Government to come to the assistance of those churches whose premises were being used as IDP camps.
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