Security agencies will not be teleguided on the arrest of former President Goodluck Jonathan on allegation of corruption, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said.
Osinbajo made this disclosure in Houston, Texas in the US on Friday at a townhall event where he interacted with Nigerians who asked questions from the audience and via the internet.
Answering a question on when Jonathan would be arrested, Osinbajo pointed out that the Muhammadu Buhari administration is not in the business of arresting anyone anyhow.
He said all Buhari does is to empower the security agencies and the anti-corruption agencies to do their jobs, without the administration trying to teleguide them.
He also added that the fight against corruption in the country is not fought on ethnic, hasty or premeditated grounds.
According to him, “corruption is not an ethnic thing, there is an equal representation in the stealing as no one operates with his/her ethnic group alone, the culprits are in every case seen so far, united by greed to steal and not by ethnic or religious interest.”
He frowned at a situation where for instance as much as $15 billion has disappeared from the national coffers into private pockets, pointing out that no responsible government would wave that aside so as not to offend people.
Commenting on the recent arrest of judges, Osinbajo told his Nigerian audience in Texas that impunity could be very dangerous in any sector and that the federal government is only exercising its executive function in attempting to check excesses.
He pointed out that the important thing is that due process is being followed as the judges were released about 24 hours after their arrest and once they had given their statements.
Osinbajo also responded to a question on the state of the nation’s economy and attributed the current recession to the loss of about 60 percent of government revenue due to pipeline vandalisation and endemic corruption in the system.
The townhall event was moderated by Rudolf Okonkwo of Sahara Reporters and Prof. Nimi Wariboko of Boston University.
