Date Published: 08/25/09
25th August 2009. Press Release.
Stop This Hatchet Job Over Lagos LCDAs, Lagos AC Tells ICPC.
The Lagos State chapter of the Action Congress has condemned what it sees as a deliberate employment of the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Offences Commission (ICPC) by the Yar’Adua government and the PDP to witch hunt, harass, distract the activities of the local councils in Lagos. The party sees this effort as proof that the present PDP government is hell bent on levying rot and general decay on the entire country.
In a release in Lagos, signed by the party’s Lagos State Publicity Secretary, Joe Igbokwe, Lagos AC said that at a time the LCDAs are doing wonderfully well to compliment the developmental efforts of the Lagos State government, it is devilish for a political party that has come to represent corruption, decay and underdevelopment to employ desperate efforts to scuttle them. It advises the Yar’Adua government to find more work in tackling the crumbling nationhood, which stares Nigeria in the face under his clearly incompetent watch than strive to reverse the wheels of progress in Lagos.
“We are not surprised that the PDP has found real job in desperately trying to stifle the good works going on in Lagos because it feels that is the only way its inept and corrupt governance elsewhere would continue unnoticed. When it vowed to employ any means to battle the LCDAs in Lagos, the Yar’Adua government left no one in doubt as to the intent of its mission. By setting ICPC on the only recognized case of progress in this woe-ridden dispensation, no Nigerian is in doubt about the evil agenda of the PDP.
“We know that the ICPC has so much instances of corruption to battle in the corruption haven, which the PDP-led federal government has become and in all the PDP states, which are being given immunity to loot and plunder while the PDP prosecutes the dubious quest for a one-party state. Nigerians know that the three tiers of government manned by the PDP are replete with mindless looting, asset stripping and dubious practices yet the ICPC is being led to battle Lagos LCDAs, which have become agents of rapid development and progress in Lagos for the past eight years.
“Lagos AC knows that there are procedures and process for any ICPC investigation and this is upon a genuine petition by an interested party but that none of these procedures is followed in the present partisan witch hunt, which the ICPC is doing for the PDP. Nigerians should wonder why the PDP and the Yar’Adua government have avoided the country’s legal system in this issue and have instead romanced all illegal and self-help means to force down an illegal partisan interest. We should wonder why the ICPC should be employed so freely to do the dirty biddings of the PDP, when it is being funded by tax-payers money.
“For the avoidance of doubts, many PDP states like Ebonyi, Enugu, Bayelsa, etc, are running similar structures as the Lagos LCDAs and the PDP are home with these. Even when local councils and development areas in the PDP states are mere money-sharing centers, the Yar’Adua government with its hypocritical commitment to the rule of law, has not deemed it fit to question the monumental corruption that have stifled development in these states because that is traditional with his partisan interests. Having sworn to encourage the ultra-corrupt interests of the PDP, we are not surprised that the only area where the Yar’Adua government now demonstrates any symptom of activism in the face of general decay and atrophy that threatens the country is in stopping the progress going on in Lagos.
“We call on the ICPC to demonstrate its independence by backing off on its present hatchet job on Lagos. We want to remind them that they exist for all Nigerians and not for the narrow, selfish and negative interests of the PDP. We call on Nigerians to rise against this destructive tendency of employing institutions of state for partisan interests as that lies at the very soul of democracy. The PDP federal government, the PDP states and the various local governments in Nigeria under the control of the PDP are glaring cases of corruption, which should interest the ICPC. They should do their jobs instead of being used for hatchet efforts by a party that has come to signify all that is bad, corrupt and reprehensible about Nigeria.”
Joe Igbokwe.
Publicity Secretary,
Lagos AC.
