Political Briefs
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THE Presidency and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, are again at loggerheads over corruption allegations. Reacting to allegations that President Muhammadu Buhari had been shielding prominent members of the governing All Progressives Congress, APC, from prosecution, the Presidency on Thursday, September 3, advised the opposition PDP to stop distracting the president with frivolous and unfounded allegations of selectivity in the war against corruption.
Garba Shehu, senior special assistant to the president on media and publicity, said contrary to the PDP allegations, President Buhari had not and would not shield any APC government official from facing prosecution for corruption.
Shehu said that since President Buhari came into office, he had never told the Economic and Finance Crimes Commission, EFCC, not to touch any APC governor because they belong to the same party. He, therefore, charged Olisa Metuh, national publicity secretary the PDP, who made the allegations to produce evidence to back up his claims.
Shehu described Metuh’s allegations as malicious and unfounded. He also said there was no truth in the allegation by Metuh that funds from the Excess Crude Account were being depleted by the Buhari administration to pay back the APC governors that contributed to his presidential campaign.
The PDP had on Thursday, September 3, claimed that it had incontrovertible evidence of corrupt practices allegedly perpetrated by associates and cronies of government, including former and present APC governors and others who played major roles in financing political campaigns with alleged stolen state funds and were being protected by the Buhari government.
In a statement signed by Metuh, the party said this had created a system that was neck-deep in corruption, while the government hoodwinked unsuspecting public with propaganda.
Metuh said: “Whereas the PDP restates its respect for the person and office of the president as well as our support for the war against corruption, it is incumbent on us to alert Nigerians of the prevailing circumstances around this government that are capable of fundamentally undermining good governance if left unchecked.
“Charity, they say, begins at home. For the APC-led government, it has now become a question of ‘physician, heal thyself’. Every discerning mind knows that this administration is not executing a credible holistic war against corruption because it is a product of corruption, surrounded by corrupt persons; a factor apparently responsible for its obvious blind eyes to huge sleazes now being perpetrated in government agencies by persons claiming closeness to the president.”
In the same vein, the statement accused the Buhari administration of not following due process in making some key appointments. It said: “How else can one explain the deliberate constitutional violations in the appointment of heads of financial-handling federal agencies, such as the Federal Inland Revenue Service and the Asset Management Cooperation of Nigeria without due process of ministerial consultations and legislative clearance, as the case may be? Is this a scheme to open up these key finance institutions for malpractices and turn them into cash cows for the APC interests?
“This is in addition to ongoing manoeuvrings in the oil sector, where clandestine moves are on to award oil refining licenses to cronies without the due process of open bidding, as well as statutory guidelines and checks by the Department of Petroleum Resources.”
The PDP, therefore, called on Nigerians to note that the APC-led administration had not been forthcoming on spending of funds it inherited in the Excess Crude Account and other government savings.
— Sep 14, 2015 @ 01:00 GMT
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