The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to immediately proscribe the All Progressives Congress (APC) following allegations that it financed President Muhammadu Buhari’s 2015 campaign with looted funds.
The party, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, on Monday, also gave the Buhari-led presidency a three-day ultimatum to respond to allegations that it was elected with looted funds or find itself top of the list of confirmed looters.
The party said instead of the Presidency and the APC to come out with a response on how President Buhari’s 2015 campaign was funded with looted sums, they are busy hallucinating about names of individuals whose matters are before the courts of competent jurisdiction.
In the meantime, an aide to former President Goodluck Jonathan, Reno Omokri, former PDP National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh, erstwhile governor of Niger State, Babangida Aliyu and Fani Kayode, including a senior lawyer have reacted separately to the newly released list by the APC-led government with some of them threatening to take legal action to put the records straight.
In the same vein, the Ekiti State Governor, Mr Ayodele Fayose, has told President Muhammadu Buhari to stop castigating the members of the PDP as being corrupt, saying the president is superintending over the most corrupt government in the history of Nigeria.
He said Buhari has been busy shielding looters of the treasury in his government, saying: “Nigerians have seen through their deceit and will no longer buy that fake image of integrity they are trying to sell.”
The governor said: “With the Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index saying that corruption has become more endemic in Nigeria than it was in the last 16 years, with the country moving 12 places below its rating, a honourable government would have stopped using the fight against corruption as its major achievement and releasing names of people that are still under trial as looters just to cover up its failure.”
He said the first list of alleged looters released by the government was politically motivated and the second one was an afterthought that was done to cover the shame of the government because Nigerians questioned the first list.
The party, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Ologbondiyan, on Monday, also gave the Buhari-led Presidency a three-day ultimatum to respond to allegations that it was elected with looted funds or find itself top of the list of confirmed looters.
“It is evidently clear that the APC, federal government and the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, are running away from the issue of how they raised money to install Buhari as President.
“They have pressed the panic button and resorted to unfounded allegations against PDP members just to divert the attention of Nigerians and the international community from their atrocious government and its manifold failures of leadership.
“The PDP will not join the panicky APC and the federal government in their resort to engage in matters that are subjudiced because we believe and respect the rule of law, particularly, as it concerns the rights of every citizen.
“We know those in the APC and Buhari’s cabinet, who as champions of looting, plundered the resources of their various states and handed same over for the very expensive electioneering campaign of President Buhari, who had earlier confessed of his insolvency.
“We have challenged the APC and the Presidency to declare the sources of these funds and how they were used since they have been proven to come from public coffers.
“Now that the APC, the federal government, Alhaji Lai Mohammed and the Buhari Presidency have chosen a loud silence rather than accepting that looted funds were used to install Buhari as president in 2015, we charge INEC to do the needful by commencing the process for the proscription of the APC as a political party,” he said.
In a statement on Monday by his Special Assistant on Public Communications, Lere Olayinka, Governor Fayose reiterated that Nigerians were more interested in their welfare, security of their lives and physical development of the country than tales of concocted lists of corrupt Nigerians, who are only corrupt in the estimation of the government because they do not belong to the ruling APC.
“The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) never pretended to Nigerians that it had corrupt people in its fold and the party never protected them. Today, the party has gone ahead to offload the corrupt elements into the APC and they were not only accepted gladly into the party, they were given prominent appointments by the president,” Fayose said.
The governor, who likened President Buhari to a father who is protecting his children that are armed robbers but calling on security agents to arrest children of his neighbour for stealing meat from their mother’s pot said: “For any lists of alleged looters to be credible, the President, who is protecting looters should be number one while those looters in his government should follow.
“His nomination form was bought with proceeds of corruption and those who bought the form and financed his election were paid back with the return of all their seized properties, ministerial appointments and even disappearance of prosecution witnesses in EFCC cases.”
Speaking further, Governor Fayose said: “A government that reinstated and promoted Abdullahi Maina, who was declared wanted for corrupt practices by the International Police Organisation (INTERPOL) and dismissed in 2013 for alleged N2.1 billion pension fraud and used APC broom to sweep the $25 billion contracts scam in the NNPC under the carpet is nothing but a government of plunderers and that is the clear definition of Buhari’s government.
“It was in this same government that the Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole, suspended the National Health Insurance Scheme Executive Secretary, Professor Usman Yusuf, for alleged corruption and the president recalled him even without the knowledge of the minister.
“Up till today, nothing has happened to the probe panel on the alleged N500 million bribery said to have been paid to the President’s Chief of Staff (COS), Abba Kyari by officials of MTN to influence government to discontinue its heavy stance on the $5 billion fine imposed on the company.
“Therefore, no matter how hard they try now, they can no longer hoodwink Nigerians with their deceit of fight against corruption. Even APC Senator, Shehu Sani once said that the President uses insecticide to fight corruption involving his perceived political opponents, but use deodorant when it affects his own men.”
Also on Monday, a former Niger State governor, Dr Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu, said that he did not loot the treasury wondering why the federal government should include his name in the 24 man treasury looters’ list released again by the Minister of Information Mohammed.
Aliyu said in a statement made available to journalists in Minna, the Niger State capital, on Sunday night threatened to challenge his inclusion on the list to a logical conclusion.
The former governor explained that nobody had confronted him with any document(s) that he received N1.6 billion from the former National Security Adviser (NSA), saying “they have to prove it”.
Aliyu said the APC government had embarked on “calculated blackmail against my person” because “I refused to join the APC” adding “we all have our minds and what we believe in politics is a thing of the mind”.
The former governor said in the orchestrated plot “to tarnish my image I am currently before the federal high court and a Niger State high court for the same alleged offence
“This is to show that the government is hell-bent on bringing me down but they will not succeed”.
He declared that “I served my people to the best of my ability, I have left a landmark for posterity, no amount of blackmail or character assassination can wipe me out from the minds of the people”.
Dr Aliyu said he was already consulting his lawyers on the next line of action to take on the issue.
A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Chief Ferdinand Orbih, has described the release of names of alleged looters, who are still on trial at different courts as totally irresponsible.
The senior lawyer said such people who are still undergoing trial over corruption allegations are presumed innocent until the cases against them are proven as enshrined in the constitution.
He said: “For the federal government to label as looters, persons who are undergoing trial over corruption allegations is totally irresponsible.
“Such persons are presumed innocent until proven otherwise, by the Constitution, which the president swore to uphold.”
According to him, it does appear that the federal government does not understand what the rule of law entails or the dynamics of the due process.
“The case against Nenadi Usman is still pending in court. The federal government that has labelled her as a looter of public funds is yet to prove the allegations against her in court.
“The government by taking this matter to the court of public opinion is making a strong statement either that it has no confidence in the process it has initiated in court, or it is calculated to arm-twist the judiciary to convict at all costs.
“Either way, the publication by the government portends grave danger to democracy and the rule of law. Surely, there will be a legal response to this executive gross misbehaviour,” said Orbih.
