DEBATE: You can’t trivialise corruption, Osinbajo tells Obi



Tobi Aworinde, Abuja
The vice -presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress , Prof Yemi Osinbajo, has said the gravity of corruption should not be trivialised .

Osinbajo, who spoke during the ongoing vice -presidential debate at Transcorp Hilton Hotel , Abuja , was rebutting a comment by his counterpart in the Peoples Democratic Party , Mr Peter Obi , who criticised the focus of the current administration on anti -corruption .
Obi had said , “You cannot shut down your shops and be chasing criminals .”

But the APC candidate said ,

“If you allow criminals to steal all the inventory in the shop , there will be no shop . That ’s the problem . And what has happened in Nigeria in the past 16 years is what the World Bank told us ; that the major cause of our poverty is corruption .

“That is what we ’ve been told. So , let me say there is no way we can minimise . You can ’t minimise corruption ; if you minimise it, we run the risk of completely — in fact, the argument is lost.

“We cannot do what we want to do unless we are able to minimise corruption or eradicate it completely , which is what we ’ re trying to do .”

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