Yemi Osinbajo, Nigeria’s vice president, gestures whilst speaking following a Bloomberg Television interview in Abuja, Nigeria, on Monday, Oct. 20, 2015. Nigeria plans to create a $25 billion fund with public and private financing to modernize infrastructure and avoid a recession, Osinbajo said. Photographer: George Osodi/Bloomberg *** Local Caption *** Yemi OsinbanjoNigerians from all tribes and regions are corrupt thieves, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said on Tuesday, adding that there is “federal character” in corruption in the country as all tribes, religions, languages and regions are prominently represented.
The “federal character” principle, which has been enshrined in Nigeria’s Constitution since 1979, seeks to ensure that appointments to public service institutions fairly reflect the linguistic, ethnic, religious, and geographic diversity of the country.
Corruption in Nigeria reflects all those divisions and diversities, he said.
“Corruption for example, which is crippling Nigeria, is corruption a geo-political problem?,” the Vice President asked during a television interview on Tuesday.
“Because what I have seen, just looking at the case files, what I have seen is that when there is corruption in Nigeria, any case of corruption, you will find federal character, every geo-political zone is represented.
“If somebody steals today, if you find somebody stealing $200m or $2b as we see, you will find that everybody is represented. You will find Yoruba man, Housa man, the man from South-South, you find the Igbo man. There is equal representation,” Mr. Osinbajo said while emphasising that less attention should be devoted to regions or tribes and more attention should be given to unity and good governance.
“I very strongly believe that the time will come when we will no longer be emphasising geo-political zone and that is the kind of Nigeria I will like to see. I like to see a Nigeria where we are all able to work together, where we are able to de-emphasise ethnicity, de-emphasise geo-political zone. That is the kind of Nigeria that I’ll like to see,” the Vice President said while answering the question on whether he believed in rotation of power amongst regions and tribes.
He said political parties should be left to decide the type of power sharing structure they want and not include it in the constitution.
The Vice President said he was in support of state police, but it won’t be possible to have one without constitutional amendments, he added.
“We have continued to advocate for state police. I continue to advocate for state police, I believe very strongly that we must have state police…Community policing, we can’t achieve it without a constitutional amendment. So I very strongly believe that we must have community policing”.
The constitutional lawyers said he supported constitutional amendments but not the division of the country based on tribes and regions.