Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo says the federal government has not prosecuted treasury looters due to “strategic advice” from stakeholders.
He said this on Monday at the 2017 celebration of the International Anti-corruption Day in Abuja. According to Osinbajo, the government has been able to fish out 50,000 ghost workers from the payroll in the past two years.
He also said that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission had charged 17 suspects to court for allegedly being part of the crime.
“The administration has relied a lot on strategic advice, looking at the fight against corruption from a broad perspective, and basically relying on independent advice in order to move forward in fighting corruption,”
Osinbajo, who was represented by his Special Adviser on Rule of Law, Akingbolahan Adeniran, said. “It is focused a lot on prevention, and this is one aspect that a lot of people do not talk about so much. Then enforcement, this is the key aspect of the fight against corruption, there has to be accountability for those who basically violate the law.
“Then asset recovery, which is a key element of the fight against corruption. As regards assets recovery, where there has been no conviction, it is because of the strategic advice that we were given.”
