The vice presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the next general elections, Prof Yemi Osinbajo has accused the federal government of complicity in oil theft that as persisted in the country, saying that about 400, 000 barrels of oil are being stolen in the country everyday.
Osinbajo made the allegation at an event held at the Nike Lake Resort Hotel, Enugu, where he met representatives of students from the southeast of Nigeria.
Osinbajo said the APC would change the educational curricula at levels in the country to reflect 21st Century thinking. He said it was time for the country to start thinking of “relevant education” that would promote job creation.
He stressed that such amount of crude oil could not be stolen without the involvement of the government.
Warning that the current level of corruption would certainly ruin Nigeria if left unchecked, Osinbajo, a Senior Pastor in the Redeemed Christian Church of God said, “It is impossible for someone to steal 400,000 barrels of crude oil everyday without some official complicity.
“How many years of stealing can we tolerate? I don’t think that Nigeria can continue to deal with this type of stealing that is going on at the moment.
“The truth of the matter is that if the country goes on the way it is going, we are heading for trouble.
“There is a big problem in the country and that problem is getting worse by the day and the reason why it is getting worse is because of bad governance.
“The difference between Nigeria’s corruption and corruption elsewhere is Nigeria’s corruption threatens to destroy the country.”
Osinbajo argued that the depletion of the country’s external reserves due to mismanagement by the Federal Government was responsible for the problems with the exchange rate of the Naira.
The vice presidential hopeful’s message to the students, drawn from several institutions in the South East, mostly centered on employment.
Noting that “80 per cent of graduates in the country today have no jobs,” he described unemployment as the “most important problem” in the country.
To address this problem, he said the APC would overhaul the academic curricula at all levels of education.
He said the party’s plan for “relevant education” would “involve changing our curricula at all levels so that education will be relevant to the society.”
The SAN added, “We intend, as a party, to do that not only at the primary and secondary stages, but at all levels for whoever is ready to learn.”
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