PDP Seeks APC’s Proscription, Looters’ List Gets Knocks
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 threeday 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 Peoples Democratic Party (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, Kola Ologbondiyan, on Monday, also gave the Buhari-led Presidency a threeday 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.
"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 All Progressives Congress (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.”
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 meats 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,” the governor said.
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 comes it affects his own men.”
Omokri Disagrees, Releases Own List
A former aide to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan on New Media, Mr. Reno Omokri has faulted the list of looters released by the Minister of Information and Culture, Mr. Lai Mohammed, saying the list did not contain even one member of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Omokri, who has also released a list of alleged looters in President Muhammadu Buhari’s cabinet, said in a statement yesterday that the list released by Mohammed has proved that Buhari, the Information Minister and the APC are not fighting corruption but fighting the opposition.
Similarly, a former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode has said that the release of a purported looters list by the federal government is an attempt to intimidate the judiciary to convict at all costs those facing trial in various courts.
In his reaction to the list which included him and 22 others, Fani-Kayode described as nonsensical and utterly shameful the looters' list released last Sunday by the Minister for Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.
In his reaction, Omokri said he took the pains to produce a ‘teaser’ looters list of APC members who are collectively alleged to have looted over $2 billion and challenged President Buhari and the Information Minister to explain why these men did not feature on their list.
The former presidential aide also sought to know these alleged looters have continued to remain in the APC government where they wield immense powers and influence, even over the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) that is meant to prosecute them
Omokri, who threatened to release more names, depending on the reaction of the President Buhari- led government, listed the alleged looters in APC to include: Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, whom he said was indicted by the Justice George Omeregi-led Rivers State Judicial Commission of Inquiry of looting N97 billion along with co-indictees, including a former army general.
He also named Saminu Turaki, whom he alleged to