The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says the latest report by
Transparency International (TI) showing that corruption has worsened
under the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration has vindicated
its stand that the current APC-led government is inherently and overtly
corrupt.
The party said, by this new TI report, the African Union (AU) must have
now realized its error in naming President Buhari as the African Union
(AU) anti-corruption champion and should immediately withdraw the
conferment.
PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, in a statement on
Thursday, said the TI report has exposed the fact that those parading
daily as champions of anti-corruption are rather superintending over the
worst kind of official sleaze and hypocrisy in the history of our
nation.
The party said the APC administration has been deceiving Nigerians with
a holier than thou posturing and painting others black when it is
swimming in forms of corruption that is eminently festered by official
concealment by the Presidency.
When the PDP first alerted that the APC and its incompetent Federal
Government were swimming in an ocean of concealed corruption, many did
not know to what extent.
It is shocking that under our ‘saints’, Nigeria has moved significantly
from the 136th it ranked in 2016 to 146th in 2017, with President Buhari
presiding on our nation.
This is a government that has been providing cover for its corrupt
officials while operating heavily on propaganda, persecution of
opposition members with fabricated charges and toiling to sway the
people with false performance indices.
This is a government that offered protection to former APC governors who
were accused of stealing money meant for the development of their states
to fund the 2015 APC presidential campaign, and even rewarded them with
ministerial appointments.
We challenge the APC and the Presidency to speak out on this TI report.
What have they to say when the world is now aware that they are
complicit in humongous sleazes including the leaked official memo
showing underhand oil contracts to the tune of N9 trillion ($25billion
dollars) at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the
Ministry of Petroleum Resources which are under purview of President
Buhari as Petroleum minister?
What has the APC government to say when the world is aware that it is
complicit in shady oil subsidy deals amounting to trillions of naira by
its cabal who has also been fingered to be behind the illegal lifting
and diversion of crude worth N1.1 trillion to service APC interests?
The world is now aware of the diversion of billion of naira meant for
fight against insurgency and rehabilitation of Internally Displaced
Persons (IDPs) by the presidency cabal; the concealment of theft, by the
cabal, of billion of naira at the National Health Insurance Scheme
(NHIS) among other heavy sleazes around the presidency.
As we speak, the APC administration has increased taxes, levies and
tariffs without a transparent remitting regime while funds said to have
been recovered in the anti-graft war have not been adequately accounted
for.
Instead, the government has been peddling false figures and bogus claims
to hoodwink Nigerians while its cabal continues to fritter away funds
meant for the good of the people.