2017 International Anti-Corruption Day & The Launch Of Corruption Busters

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REMARKS BY VICE PRESIDENT YEMI OSINBAJO, SAN, AT A FORUM TO MARK THE 2017 INTERNATIONAL ANTI-CORRUPTION DAY AND THE LAUNCH OF THE CORRUPTION BUSTERS, AT THE FILM HOUSE, LAGOS ON SATURDAY 9TH DECEMBER 2017.

PROTOCOLS

First, I want to thank you all very much for taking the time to attend this event.

I want to say that this event to mark the International Anti-Corruption Day 2017 is very special – Creative Youth Initiative Against Corruption (CYIAC) and the launch of the Corruption Busters, an Educational Movie Series.

I think it was Dr Joe Okei-Odumakin who repeated the expression that “if we don’t kill corruption, corruption will kill us”. I want to say that, of course, President Buhari is noted to have said that and he has been very often quoted.

I want to say that this is not just a clever turn of phrase or expression that “if we don’t kill corruption, corruption will kill us”. It is the recognition of a very terrible reality that if we don’t do something about corruption, we will be faced with not just an uncertain present but a more frightening future.

Many of us are already familiar with the facts of what we have in our hands today. The honourable Minister of Information and Culture, Alh. Lai Mohammed has given some of these facts that show that what we have lost to corruption would have built this society several times over.

But in more recent years, some of us have heard about the defence contract scam where some of those defence contracts were given out in what was supposed to be the answer to the Boko Haram insurgency and were unable to be accountable for.

About two to three weeks to the 2015 general elections, $289 million dollars was released in cash and N100 billion was also released in cash and none of those, of course, was ever accounted for.

If you want to get the sense of the enormity of the size of this money, look at states like Ebonyi or Osun. Either of those states don’t get as much as N200 billion a year. But somebody just makes away with a N100 billion in cash; that is what a whole state would have needed to do something for their people.

Also, if you look at why Nigeria got into recession towards the end of 2015, three variables are critical. The first of them is that oil prices crashed, the second is that oil production dropped because of the militancy in the Niger Delta, but perhaps, more importantly, was what we lost in terms of what people had stolen because that was more than half of what was then our external reserves. The external reserves stood at about $28 billion because what was lost to those corrupt activities was well in excess of $18 billion.

And so, there is no nation on earth that can survive that kind of onslaught of corruption against its resources, it is not possible. And this is why it is important for us to understand that corruption for us is an existential problem; one that could kill us if we don’t fight it very hard indeed.

One thing I would like to say also is, how do you fight corruption? It was a one-time EFCC chairman, Nuhu Ribadu that said, “You need the political will to fight corruption’’, and I want to confirm that today, that political will is not lacking.

I also need to add that we need men and women who are committed to fighting corruption. But it is not enough to be committed by the word of mouth, it is very important that you find people who are committed, who are ready to give up a lot of their comfort and convenience, just to make sure that they are involved in the fight. People like Ibrahim Magu, Nuhu Ribadu are examples of people who you can say are crusaders in the anti-corruption fight. So, for me, one of the very important requirements in this fight is that we need people who are serious in the fight against corruption.

The point is that, the easiest part of this fight is arresting people and putting them on trial but the more difficult part is reforming the institutions that have been corrupted because our society has experienced for years, what experts would describe as systemic corruption. There are cases where corruption is not just the exception, it is the rule.

One of the biggest problems that we have is how to fight and ensure that we reform the system. When I say the system, of course I mean the judiciary, the police, the civil service and the entire public service system that have been corrupted through the years. So, you sometimes find it difficult to process cases from investigation to trial and conviction because the institutions themselves are corrupted.

So, it is recognized that it is a very difficult thing to do but it takes focus and commitment. I have seen many young people here today who, like the convener of this programme, I hope will decide to do something about fighting corruption.

One is not naïve about the massive problem of fighting corruption but the thing I have always had is not about what it takes to fighting corruption, it has always been that somewhere along the line, we may lose our outrage, we may lose what it is that causes people in other parts of the world to say “no we are not going to accept corruption”. We may lose it because as time goes on, one campaign against corruption after the other, we see the same story such that sometimes we ask ourselves, will this ever work. This also is not helped by the fact that time and time again, we hear shameless noises by the people who have brought us to where we are that they want to come back. But that is the way of corruption all over the world, people empower themselves in a way that they are able to keep fighting because they have stolen so much such that every time, every election cycle, they are able to fight.

So, that has been the biggest fear that we will somewhere along the line lose out. But I am greatly encouraged by what I have seen here today, that we will never lose our outrage.

I am certainly looking forward to working with you, there is a lot that we can do together to tackle this menace, just like what Adegboyega said in his musical presentation, sometimes it is not about public sector corruption or grand corruption, it is about people who are cheated, this is about people who are doing all sort of things that generally depicts lack of integrity and undermines honesty and integrity.

I think it is time for us to reexamine ourselves and do the things that will change our society so that one day our country will be proud of the work that you have started here today.

Thank you.