Nigeria cannot be rich when states are poor - Osinbajo
- Professor Yemi Osinbajo said the Buhari administration will continue the fight against corruption
- The vice president also advocated for more state autonomy
- Osinbajo said the country can become better when states are allowed to control resources
The vice president, Professor Yemi Osinbajo has said that Nigeria can become stronger and more prosperous if states have more power to generate and control their resources.
The Nation reports that the vice president said this at the 59th Independence Anniversary lecture at the Island Club in Ikoyi on Friday, October 4.
The vice president said with the country’s population and diverse ethnicity, states needed to be strengthened more so they can also contribute to national development.
He said this could be achieved with “stronger, more autonomous States that are able to generate and control more of their resources.”
“The most important transformative change we can make in Nigeria is to lift the majority of our people out of deprivation by speedily creating wealth and opportunity leading to the eradication of poverty.”
Osinbajo said the Muhammadu Buhari administration wanted states to contribute more
He said: “The nation cannot be wealthy when its component parts – the states – are poor. The standard of living of the federation depends on the standard of living of people who live in the states.
“In other words, the federation can only be as rich as its richest state and as strong as its strongest state. Our national indices merely aggregate the realities of our weaknesses and strengths as present in all our constituent units.
“Consequently, we can only build a stronger and more prosperous nation by building stronger and more prosperous states.
“Building stronger states means ensuring the devolution of more power to the states, enabling them to control more of their resources and make more of their own administrative decisions such as the creation of Local Governments, the establishment of state and community police forces as well as state correctional facilities; creation of special courts and tribunals of equivalent jurisdiction to high courts. The point I am making is that states must have more powers and more rights.”
On the issue of corruption, the vice president said the Buhari administration will continue to fight the phenomenon.
He said: “Two governors have been convicted for corruption, and they are in jail today. It took almost 10 years because our legal system is extremely slow, but we achieved it.
“The other thing I think we have to take note of is the fact that corruption fights back, and we also as citizens have to much more up and doing, because corruption fights back. They throw mud at everybody, give the impression that, “everybody is corrupt.”
Meanwhile, Bishop Francis Wale Oke stated that Osinbajo is not a corrupt individual.
Oke who is the presiding Bishop of the Sword of the Spirit Ministries Ibadan, made the comment while receiving a delegation from the Nigeria Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ), Oyo state chapter.
He said some Christian elders visited Prof Osinbajo to know the veracity of the news making the rounds and he not only denied involving himself in any sleaze.
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