Corruption, Tribalism Threatening Nigeria’s Growth- Osinbajo
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, on Friday said that the menace of corruption and tribalism remained major threats that can hold the country back from taking its place of greatness amongst the comity of nations.
The Vice President said this at Greater Nigeria Pastors conference with the theme, “ Towards A Better Nigeria”, held in Lagos, said that the present administration has surmounted the initial challenges that retarded the nation’s growth and put it on the path of economic growth.
He said, “Our country would turn the corner in the next few years. We would soon be experiencing progress and joy. What can hold us back, what is it that can hold us back?
“Two things, the first is corruption, we must deal with it decisively because it is systemic, it is perpetrated by the leadership elite that include not just the politicians, but private sector individuals and even religious leaders.
“The second is tribalism and religion and other tendencies, probably because of state failure in some respects. It is failure of Christian leadership to take its full rightful place. We are too divided. The truth of the matter is that the truth to the key and unity of Nigeria is in the church, the pillar and ground of the truth, that is what the church is called.
“It is the church that is imbued with the revelation that there is neither Jew nor Greek, that there is neither male nor female, that we are all one before Jesus. It is the church that has been entrusted with uniting this nation by uniting itself, urging them to do away with prejudices.”
Osinbajo said that his view about Nigerian elite, whether political, religious, business, regardless of ethnicity, is that they think alike, especially on issues of corruption.
He said, “Let me just repeat that the Nigerian elite, whether it is political, whether religious, whether business, they think exactly alike. They are driven by cynical motivation, the elite is self-centered. They wear political cap when it is convenient and ethnic cap when it is necessary to get the masses in line.
“However, the most painful point to note is that when you look at any of the alleged perpetrators of invidious cases of corruption, all tribes, all ethnicities, and religions are all represented. In other words, high level corruption is about no one religion or ethnicity. They are everywhere in ministries, in government, in legislature, in the press, in the judiciary, they are everywhere and they protect each other.”
The Vice president added that, “They are actually one tribe regardless of ethnicity. It is these tribes that cause the problem in our society.
“ For instance, I have never seen a situation where an Ibo man, a Hausa man and an Ijaw man came together to steal money and they argue about it, no. Nobody would say there is something wrong with the Ibo man, or with the other people. In other words, the conspirators are brothers and sisters as the case may be.
“It is my humble submission that to build a new Nigeria, we need a new tribe, a tribe more committed to a country run on a high value of integrity, hard work, justice and love of country, ready to fight corruption even when their friends are at the receiving end. A tribe of people that are prepared to make sacrifices and a challenge for us is how to populate that tribe.”
Also speaking at the conference, Director-general, Institute of National Transformation, Professor Vincent Anigbogu, in his address titled, ‘Towards a Greater Nigeria, the Role of The Church’, lamented the current state of affairs in the country, declaring that the church had also failed to play its assigned role.
Anigbogu, while identifying corruption as basically the problem facing the country and the need to apply “renewed transformation of mind,” listed the roles the church was expected to play to include spiritual capacity development, intellectual capacity development, emotional capacity development among others.
“Is this what we do when we say we are disciplining a church?” he queried, declaring: “We are gathering people instead of processing people,” just as he cited the example of the Jews in America, who only formed 1.8per cent American population being in command in the country.
Also speaking, the Presiding Bishop of the Redeemed Evangelical Mission (TREM) Word wide, Bishop Mike Okonkwo, observed that Nigeria had not done much with the God endowed resources available to it, submitting that churches in the country were asleep and most times, their lights only shone in the big structures erected to depict their presence.
He equally lamented the poor state of the country’s road, health sector, leading to several avoidable deaths, but quickly called on church leadership to help build synergy that would help the country out of its current challenges rather than building empires.
“If we don’t change our perspective, nothing would change in the country,” Okonkwo said.