After re-election, Osinbajo sustains blame game on past govts

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who got re-elected as Nigeria’s leader alongside President Muhammadu Buhari, has continued heaping the blame for Nigeria’s failures on past government.

Since 2015 when Nigeria first elected Buhari and Osinbajo as the country’s President and Vice President, the duo and those in their government have continued to insist that lack of integrity and corruption in past government is reason Nigeria has not been progressing.

Osinbajo, who spoke at the 11th colloquium of Bola Tinubu, the All Progressives Congress (APC) leader on Thursday, said “I have said it before, Nigeria’s main problem is not a lack of ideas; it’s not. Most of the time, especially with the leadership of the past, it is lack of integrity in leadership and corruption in particular and it is the reason we are finding it difficult to make any progress.

“That is why we earned $383 billion in four years – 2010 to 2014 – the highest ever in the history of our country and yet Lagos-Ibadan expressway not done, all of what is being done today not done.

“We cannot point to a single major project, a single major infrastructure project that was completed in the ten years period despite the high wealth, including power. So, a government coming after so many years of waste must be a government that first, emphasises fiscal prudence, a government that emphasises integrity in public finance so that we manage the little resources we have to achieve the maximum that can be achieved and that is what President Muhammadu Buhari has set out to do.”

Osinbajo represented President Buhari at the event. He eulogised the APC leader.

The VP had served as Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice when Tinubu was Lagos State governor.

“We do it (the colloquium) in celebration of a man who has spent the last 30 years of his life in creative public service. Right from the days of being Lagos governor, he provided clarity of thought and rare vision in all aspects of life.

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“Once in a while, I think that history gives us people who are gifted transformative leaders and I believe that our country has been gifted by this transformative leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu,” Osinbajo said.

Dignitaries at the event include outgoing Lagos State Governor, Akinwumi Ambode; his Kano State counterpart, Abdullahi Ganduje; Kogi State governor, Yahaya Bello; Zamfara State Governor, Abdulaziz Yari; Mr Tinubu’s wife and a senator representing Lagos Central, Oluremi Tinubu; APC chairman Adams Oshiomole, among many others.

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