Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo (SAN) on Saturday declared that corruption, if not properly checked, will not allow government deliver on its promises.
Osinbajo advised Nigerians to distance themselves from and shun all forms of corruption.
He spoke in Ibadan the Oyo State capital at the Dorcas Hope Alive Initiative (DOHAL) foundation day public lecture.
The Vice President was represented by the Deputy Governor of Oyo State, Chief Moses Alake Adeyemo.
Speaking as Guest of Honour, Osinbajo said “If corruption is not properly checked, government may not be able to deliver well for the nation, African children are the most vulnerable groups in the world.
“The greater tragedy is that most of Africa’s poverty is avoidable but the issue of corruption and bad governance, the billions of naira lost to corruption could have been used to prevent malnutrition and infant mortality and provide a decent education for millions of our children.
“This is why some say corruption can be regarded as crime against humanity and should be seriously deal with punishment that such deserves.
“The global fund for provision of vaccines for the poorest in the developing countries stopped providing funds to Nigeria because Nigeria has been allegedly mismanaged of funds by the ministry of health officials between 2011 and 2013.
“Nigeria recently return 2.2millions dollars back to the fund. These were vaccines and drugs meant for fight of AIDs, TB, and malaria, amongst the poorest.
“There is no doubt that good governance, accountability and ensuring sanctions for corruption will correspondingly improve the chances of long and fruitful of Africans children. It is the responsibility of African government, civil groups and the citizenry to always fight corruption at all level to make us have a crime free society which our children can benefit”.
Former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, who was the Guest Speaker at the event, however, declared that, “Corruption is a corruption be it a political corruption, economical or ethnic one all is corruption and they are not welcome in any sane society”.
“Most of our children that have died all died because of the level of corruption of some health officials who instead of using some vaccines and drugs in their hospital diverted those drugs to somehow else and collected money in returns, resulting in loss of lives.
“More so, some of the NAFDAC officials that are suppose to be monitoring counterfeit drugs were not doing so because they were corrupt and in that wise they cannot do their job effectively; the result are deaths of poor children and infant mortality.
“The life of Dorcas Oke could have been saved if there were drugs at our hospitals but because they sold all the vaccines and drugs then the poor girl was left to die prematurely and I can tell you we have thousands of cases like that in our country.”
Obasanjo urged Nigerians to fight against the menace of corruption in their day to day activities.
“Individually and collectively, we should change our mindset and return to our core values, honesty, humanity, justice, moral and we should stop celebrating criminals who are in the position to do better for the society but milk the masses through their office.
“Instead of us to reject them in gatherings like church, mosques and many other events, we embrace them. It so sad; they will continue with their ways thinking what they are doing is right.
“It is high time all our religious leaders preached about the consequence of corruption on the society than to welcome them in open arms.”
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