Since Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, released what he called a
‘teaser’ tothe list of looters that vandalized and wrecked the country’s
treasuryespecially during the immediate past PDP government, all hell has
been letloose as every PDP member and supporter has made efforts to reply
to that list.In an effort to deny the damning facts in that list, all
members, supportersand sympathizers of PDP have embarked on a riotous
effort to water down thefacts contained in the list be releasing their own
versions of looters listwhich is nothing more than failed efforts to water
down the importance of thelist and generalize the guilt for the exclusive
sins the PDP did in 16 wholeyears. The release by the minister, in the
first instance, flowed from thechallenge from the PDP for the present
government to name those in its ranksthat partook n that grand larceny.
The challenge came as a result of the APCreaction to PDP’s apology some
weeks ago. The APC, like other right thinkingNigerians, advised PDP to go
further than a few seconds apology for its grievoussins by returning the
huge amount its members stole in the last 16 years, whichwas responsible
for the parlous state of the country after a providential oilboom.
A study ofPDP’s reactions to Lai Mohammed’s release is a riotous effort to
deny theobvious truth. It is a competition to use the mundane, the inane
and theprofane to deny what Nigerians hold as a sacred truth. It was a
grand effort tolive in denial even when the facts are so obvious. For some
PDP members, theparty never stole. Infact, those of its members that stole
have left thesinking party and relocated to the more buoyant APC-which
itself is anadmittance of the truth they are desperately trying to run
away from; which isthat what it ran was a rouge empire. To yet others, the
trillions of Naira thatwere reported stolen when they held dubious watch
were all fiction and notruth. As a result of this effort to cover the sun
with bare palms, several PDPofficials and members have gone father to
release their own ‘looters list’which are exclusively made up of all its
members that defected to the APC. So,in effect, PDP disingenuously
confirmed that the party organized a stealing competitionwhere only those
that bolted from its drowning boat were complicit while thesaints
remained. One is bound to ask why PDP is straining itself to deny thatit
ran a thieving regime when it maintains with a straight face that those
thatleft their party for APC were the looters.
Coming tothe looters’ lists, while the list released by Lai Mohammed
contained the namesof the looters, what they stole and from where they
stole and the dates theystole, the various lists by PDP contained only
names of those that left theirparty. No attempt was made to state what
they looted, from where they lootedand the dates they looted as contained
in Lai Mohammed’s list. This shows thatPDP was only interested in muddling
the whole issue like a pig deeply engrossedin mud, whose only duty is
ensuring it splashes enough mud about to geteveryone soiled. By just
listing names it could remember, PDP is showing it hasno solid defense to
the putrefying charge of filth that trails it. By notmaking any efforts to
back up its list with the needed proof, PDP hasvoluntarily pledged guilty
to the grand stealing that laid prostrate thecountry in 16 years.
Again, howcan PDP even deny that it ran a thieving empire when it listed
those that leftits party as being the looters while still denying that it
never organized thelooting of the country? What manner of defence is PDP
putting or is the partyutterly confused that it doesn’t even know when it
implicates itself? Is itthat PDP is not aware that by childishly listing
those that eft its party forAPC as looters, it had admitted to the charge
of being a stealing ring? Going,PDP held power for 16 years, so how is it
that it has no solid proof to attachto those it wants us to see as
looters? How come a party that stayed in powerfor 16 years have no solid
proof to back up its claim of those that stole thenation blind under its
watch? How come a PDP that was in absolute control ofpower for 16 whole
years has no shred of evidence to back its hollow claim oflooting against
those that left the party? How come PDP after sixteen years inpower, is
childishly splashing mud about as a defence of the horrendous lootingit
carried out here for those years?
The answersto the above is that PDP which operated under the mantra of
stealing not beingcorruption, got so badly enmeshed in corruption that it
never believed that aday like this will come when it would be required to
answer for its sins. PDPgot so deeply entrenched in corruption that it was
lured into believing that itwas immune from charges for its sordid acts in
power. It is certain that PDPwas caught unawares by the anti-corruption
gospel that swept it out of power.It was certain that while it was
indulging in overwhelming corrupt acts, PDPhad a dream of invincibility
that unraveled in March 2015 when Nigeriansbrushed aside its massive
corrupt dragnet to drive it off power. So thesubsequent effort to cleanse
the Augean stable it left behind has caught it sobadly unnerved and
disoriented such that the only defence it can marshal is toindulge in very
elaborate desperate means to discredit the war againstcorruption and walk
away with a dubious generalization of corruption as anescape route from
its huge sins. That was the idea behind the fabrication andrelease of
spurious looters’ lists by every PDP member as a reaction to theFederal
government’s naming of those culpable in the grand plundering thathappened
under PDP. This is the reason PDP is not ashamed to indict itself
byshamelessly saying, without any effort to attach proof, that there was
massivelooting in its era but that those that left the PDP for the APC
were those thatindulged in looting. Interesting. And you ask, why did they
leave the PDP ifthey were the beneficiaries of the free loading that
became the birthmark ofPDP’s rulership of the country?
Mostimportantly, why did PDP tender what many have come to see as a
dubious apologysome few weeks ago, if it is playing the ostrich on its
complicit status in thelooting of Nigeria? Why is PDP apologizing to
Nigerians when it knew thatsinners have left its covens and only saints
remain in the party? Why is itthat all those who were indicted and are
being probed and prosecuted forlooting not been able to name those
defectors from PDP and the amount theystole? Why have Dasuki, Diezani,
Patience Jonathan and even Goodluck Jonathan,among the many fountains of
lacerating looting, not named these defectors PDPwants us to believe were
responsible for the banal stealing that happened underthe immediate past
regime, not been able to name any of those that left theparty for APC in
their well-followed bazaar when they were in power? So far,all those they
have implicated in their many trials and probes have been thefaithful
saints that have stuck to PDP till date. Did they suffer memory lossas to
name those that abandoned its sinking ship for the APC and
limitedthemselves only to faithful PDP members? This is very instructive
as we poreinto PDP’s childish efforts to evade its indictment and offload
its sins toothers.
Let us notforget that very many former PDP members that joined APC are in
various courtsanswering for their sins but still what remains of the PDP
are what could bestbe described as hardcore, hardened and fanatic
beneficiaries of the orgy ofcorruption the PDP organized here for 16
years. They remain perpetuallyindicted for that sad turn of our national
history when the state treasury wasa free-feeding trough for all manners
of thieves to feed on. They have indictedthemselves seriously by admitting
they did nothing than organize horrendousstealing by their effort to deny
the obvious and telling us that those that leftPDP were the people that
looted the country under its corrupt criminal watch.The onus is for them
to provide proof to back their claim and hold it againstPresident Buhari
if he fails to subject those they named to trial. For now,what PDP is
doing amounts to self-indictment in the effort to trivialize
theanti-corruption war and divert attention from its historical role in
thevandalization of Nigeria’s treasury. Whichever way one looks at it, PDP
standsheavily implicated in the wreckage of the country and try it does,
it will notescape the historical indictment for such deliberate crime.
Peter ClaverOparah
Ikeja,Lagos.
E-mail: peterclaver2000@yahoo.com