2025 KICC International Gathering of Champions (IGOC) On 20/08/2025

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REMARKS BY HIS EXCELLENCY, PROF. YEMI OSINBAJO, SAN, GCON, IMMEDIATE PAST VICE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA AT THE KINGSWAY INTERNATIONAL CHRISTIAN CENTRE (KICC) 2025 INTERNATIONAL GATHERING OF CHAMPIONS (IGOC), IN THE UNITED KINGDOM, ON THE 20TH OF AUGUST, 2025

Protocols

Why did I get involved in politics and government, and why should we get involved? I had about three or four core reasons. The first is the burden to change things. As a lawyer, I believe strongly that our justice system in Nigeria could be reformed.

Many others and I were particularly concerned about delays in the trial in civil and criminal cases, making justice too expensive for many litigants and sometimes causing accused persons to spend years awaiting trial. So some of us were concerned about the lack of legal representation for the poor, even for their defence in criminal cases. So we organised volunteer lawyers who would go to courts pro bono, free of charge, to defend indigent accused persons.

To fight corruption, I co-founded, along with two others, Integrity, an anti-corruption organisation, and we published a pamphlet called Scrutiny, which chronicled cases of official corruption. We held seminars, we wrote policy papers, we proposed reforms, and we raised awareness. Yet it became clear to me and to many of us that pressure groups can only go so far.

To bring about large-scale change, to deploy human and material resources, to solve problems for a country of 200 million people, the government must be involved. Only the government has the authority, the structure, and the resources to implement reforms at scale. So for me, that opportunity came in 1999, when I was appointed Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice in Lagos State of Nigeria, by the then Governor, Governor Bola Tinubu, who is now President of Nigeria.

And working closely with the bar, with the bench, we launched several key initiatives. One of the most impactful was the Citizens’ Rights Department within the Ministry of Justice. Under this umbrella, we created something called the Office of the Public Defender, and I want you to follow the trend of this, because the Office of the Public Defender provided free legal representation for indigent citizens in both civil and criminal cases.

So rather than the few volunteer lawyers that we were able to raise at the time, when we were functioning in the pressure groups, in the human rights organisations, the Office of the Public Defender, supported by the government, hired hundreds of lawyers to fight for the rights of indigent, accused persons. But another significant moment for me came in 2014. The All Progressives Congress, which was the opposition party at the time, had just been formed, and three of us, I was, of course, a member of that opposition party, three of us, a gentleman called Professor Pat Utomi, Mr. Wale Edu, who is now the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, and I were asked to write a social investment programme into the APC’s manifesto at the time.

Of course, I had no idea that I would be the vice presidential candidate of our party, but writing the social investment policy helped us to design one of the largest social investment schemes in Africa. It included, again, a homegrown school feeding programme. Then, we had the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Schemes. We had these things called TraderMoni, FarmerMoni, and all that, giving microcredit to the informal traders. By the next year, I was nominated as the vice presidential candidate, and we won. I had the privilege of overseeing those programmes from 2016 to 2019.

At their peak, we were feeding 9.6 million children daily in public schools. We had farmers, we had cooks, we were hiring over 500,000 graduates and non-graduates, and providing microcredit to 2.4 million informal traders. If we had remained outside of partisan politics, the meaningful impacts that we managed to make would never have materialised.

But let me leave you with this point. We must not stand aside from politics. In a democratic society, if we seek real structural change that touches the roots of inequality, of poverty, of injustice, and underdevelopment, then we must engage not just as critics but as participants.

Yet, advocacy and activism are powerful tools. They raise awareness. We apply pressure and shift public opinion.

But history shows that the scale and depth of transformation that is required, especially in developing countries, cannot be achieved outside the arena of political power. Some may argue that politics is dirty, and it should be avoided. But that moral distance itself, however well-intentioned, leaves a vacuum. And vacuums, as you know, especially in politics, will never be empty for long. It will be quickly filled by opportunists, by incompetent people, and so those who have no vision for the good of the country become the leaders.

Then we, who stepped aside, become complicit in the rise of leaders who do not care. If those with competence and integrity shy away, then those without will take their place. And they will rule not just over the apathetic, they will rule not just over those who don’t care, but they will rule over all of us.

And their decisions will outlast their terms and will outlive our silence. So the context is not just neutrality, it’s a betrayal of a generation where we refuse to participate because we think that, well, this might soil us one way or the other. Even if we fail, our participation will light a path. It will offer a new model. It will awaken fresh hope. Our example will plant ideas of courage, of commitment, that others will water and grow.

And when that happens, what we represent, even if we couldn’t succeed, will endure. Our own efforts will endure. But to refuse to participate is to drop the battle in the relay race of our society’s development.

We don’t all have to run on the same lane, but we must all run. The Greeks had that special word for those who do not participate in politics. They were called idiotists, and from that word came idiot. I have no desire to disrespect anyone, but the Greeks were very wise people.

Thank you very much.