Osinbajo: It’s absurd to say Buhari’s anti-graft war is one-sided

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo says the current administration is doing well in its fight against corruption, describing as “absurd” the view that the battle is one-sided.

There have been allegations that the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led government has been targeting its opponents.

But speaking at the end of the end of the African Union summit in Kigali, capital of Rwanda, Osinbajo said those with such perception intend “trivialising a very important programme of the government”.

“I think it’s entirely absurd, I think that view is absurd and without foundation or basis whatsoever. We look at corruption from all possible facets,” he said.

“If you look at for example, corruption on the military, from military procurement, obviously the only individuals responsible for that could be persons who had held office within the period in question and that has been done and clearly the opposition was not in the office at that time.

“Those who were in the office were not necessarily opposition individuals. These were service chiefs and other personnel who had served for a while.

“The other issues for example is the fraud and the corruption that is associated with large sums of money given out by the past national security adviser (NSA) which went to several political figures and again these were large huge sums of money, over 2 billion US Dollars and the sheet size and the enormity of what we are talking about, must not be diminished in anyway or trivialised in anyway by any suggestion that it is partisan. How? In what way?

“I think those who make that suggestion obviously want to trivialise a very important programme of the government, a very important fight against corruption and also the strong effort to recover huge sums of money that have been stolen from Nigeria.”

Osinbajo also appealed to leaders of the continent affirming their commitment to human rights, with  a special focus on women.

He also agreed to a financing model that makes AU member states more directly responsible for the sustenance of the organization.

Osinbajo said the summit afforded African leaders the opportunity to review their different national programmes in view of the agenda of the summit, noting that the efforts and programmes of the Buhari administration were well received.

“I think we ‘re in a very good place in respect of our human rights agenda as well as in women’s rights, everyone endorsed the lots of serious efforts that we are making in that respect,” he said.

“I think people do appreciate that …and our efforts on social protection.

“Every one is in full support of the efforts that have been made against Boko Haram and other various insurgents and various problems in the whole of Africa.”