TheCable

Yemi Osinbajo, the running mate of Muhammadu Buhari, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), believes the federal government should be responsible for the present economic hardship that the country is facing.

Osinbajo said this on Thursday during a town hall meeting at a secondary school in Benin City, Edo state.

Lamenting the situation of things in the country, the lawyer accused President Goodluck Jonathan of lacking the political will to combat corruption.

“The dwindling prices of oil are no excuse for the present state of the economy,” he said.

“Even if oil is sold at the rate of $500 per barrel or less than $50 dollars, the economy should be in a good shape because the prices of our oil were the highest in five years.

“Our resources have been mismanaged and what we are experiencing at the moment is the absence of political will to tackle corruption. If the number one person is firm on corruption, down the line the institutions would develop easily.

“Once the political will to fight corruption is there, be sure that corruption would be fought. We have all the laws, we have all the institution, we have everything but there is no political will to fight corruption.”

Accusing the government at the centre of not having a good plan for the country, Osinbajo alleged that Nigeria would become worse if the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is allowed to continue in office beyond 2015.

“We have to block the leakages, we have to stop the bleeding because if we allow another four years of this kind of conduct, this kind of mismanagement of resources, our complaints today would become meager, because there would be nothing left,” he said.

“It’s not about how much money we have, it’s about managing what we have. It’s about being serious about management of resources. If this country is serious about managing what we have today, nobody would go to be hungry.

“So we all need to understand the options open to us as we go into this election. It is the option of the survival of this nation. It’s not about religion, tribe or ethnicity.”