Osinbajo: President Buhari will not Cover corrupt associates

To ensure the country is completely purged of corruption, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said that the anti-corruption war would be holistic and thorough to the extent that even the political associates and friends of President Muhammadu Buhari would not be spared.

He also assured local manufacturers, business owners and foreign investors of a healthy business environment in Nigeria. Osinbajo, who reiterated that the President had zero tolerance for corruption, emphasized that he would never cover up for his friends. The Vice President spoke during a special interview session with some journalists at the Presidential Villa in Abuja yesterday. He said: “No one would be spared in the fight against corruption because, even the close friends of the President know that they will not be spared, he will not cover for them. Fighting corruption is a priority.”

Osinbajo also revealed that 200,000 unemployed graduates had been selected to be engaged by the Federal Government under the N-power jobs programme, saying it was in fulfillment of campaign promises of the present administration. “We expect that before the end of the month, we will engage 200,000 out of the 500,000 unemployed graduates the Buhari administration plans to hire in the N-Power jobs programme,’’ he said. According to him, the direct government jobs is meant to keep young people occupied, pay them some amount of money and also give them a device, which will also empower through their aquisition of several skills that they can develop as time progresses. 


“We expect that before the end of this month, we should have engaged 200,000 of them and we are hoping that before the end of the year, we should have engaged more,” he said. Osinbajo disclosed that the Home-Grown School Feeding programme was set to kick off in several states this month. He said: “Definitely before the end of this month, we expect that several states would have come on stream with their Home-grown School Feeding Programmes. ‘’The programme will energise agriculture in the different states because it is what you plant that you feed the children with. ‘’We will be hiring caterers, cooks, etc, in each state because it will be Federal Government funded from primaries 1-3 and the state governments, hopefully, would be able to cater for the other classes.” 

He recalled that the programme was another section of the social investment programmes that would impact directly on the lives of Nigerian children and families. He also stated that the Micro-Credit scheme for which the Buhari administration would give very low-cost loans to more than one million Nigerian artisans, traders, market women and others, ranging from N60,000 to N100,000, would also be kicking off this month. “For women across the country, we are giving loans, micro-credit loans, to about 1.5 million women. We are focusing on market women and artisans, loans between N60,000 and 100,000 each. 

‘’We are working through the Bank of Industry, BOI. They are going to be giving out these loans, we‘ve already identified the banks and everybody who is involved in this. We should be flagging-off hopefully before the end of this month,” he said. The Vice President reassured Nigerians that the current Federal Government, led by President Muhammadu Buhari, was well focused on ameliorating the plight of the citizens of the country.