APC, PDP exchange words over anti-corruption war

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has dismissed Peoples’ Democratic Party’s (PDP’s) latest allegations on President Muhammadu Buhari administration’s anti-corruption efforts as empty, baseless and diversionary.

The party made this known in a statement issued by Mr Yekini Nabena, APC’s acting National Publicity Secretary, on Sunday in Abuja.

It added that though the opposition in a democracy was supposed to offer constructive criticisms and proffer alternative solutions to government’s policies and programmes, the opposition rhetoric of the PDP was nothing “but senseless noise-making”.

“In both content and context, PDP’s latest allegations on the President Buhari administration’s anti-corruption efforts should be seen for what they are: empty, baseless and diversionary.

“It is truly amazing that the party of a failed government which held the country prostrate for 16 years; stole, wasted and misappropriated our abundant resources, will have the audacity to make comments on the current administration,”it said.

The statement maintained that PDP’s corruption while in office, stench and suffocates Nigerians, adding that the APC within the last three years, had been clearing the rot left after its misrule.

It noted that it was under the PDP’s immediate past administration that disclosures of nauseating magnitude were made.

The statement noted that PDP recalled the N350m and the $30,000 Iyorchia Ayu and Bode George, a PDP chieftain, said they collected from Sambo Dasuki too.

It further recalled that Raymond Dokpesi, owner of African Independent Television (AIT), also confessed to have collected N2.16 billion from Dasuki for publicity purposes ahead of the 2015 general election among many more shameful disclosures.

“These are just a tip of the iceberg of how our commonwealth were massively looted by the shameless characters in the PDP.

“Instead of apologising profusely for their gang rape of the nation, the PDP seeks to present itself before Nigerians in 2019 to seek a return to their stealing.

“The PDP should understand that Nigerians cannot forget in a hurry how the country was destroyed by its gang of pen robbers,” the statement said.

It said the PDP may wish to explain to Nigerians under which administration a state Governor who was set free in many courts in Nigeria on corruption and money laundering charges was later tried and jailed in the United Kingdom.

It further added that it was not ironic that the PDP preaches about corruption in the oil sector when it in fact oversaw record pillage, maladministration and disrepair of the oil sector when it held sway.

The statement charged the PDP to remind Nigerians the circumstances under which the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Malam Sanusi Lamido, now Emir of Kano, lost his job in the bank.

It added that the party should also remind Nigerians how many millions of dollars the former CBN governor said was not remitted to the nation’s coffers on regular basis.

“The PDP may also explain the fuel subsidy scandals and how billions of the country’s funds went into private pockets; the massive seizures of properties and cash from public officers who served in the PDP Government.

“In 2015, Nigerians voted massively for the establishment of a truly progressive government to check the shocking level of impunity, corruption, disregard for the rule of law and other deplorable undemocratic practices which previously defined our national life.

“The APC assures Nigerians that the president hold sacred this collective trust,” the statement said.

It stressed that despite spirited efforts by the opposition PDP especially to discredit the APC-led federal government’s on-going anti-corruption efforts, the war against graft was being won.

The statement noted that an often overlooked major achievement of the anti-corruption war was that Buhari has brought the issue of corruption to the heart of national consciousness.

It said that the fact that Nigerians were talking about it meant that they had not accepted it as a way of life.

The statement maintained that as long as the ordinary people continued to show that disdain for corruption, the fight against it would be won sooner or later.

According to the statement, under President Buhari, the country had never had it so good as yearly remittances by the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB) had been in billions of naira, over and above what PDP governments remitted in 16 years.

It said there had also been increasing yearly revenue from the Customs Service within three years.

It added that despite low oil prices, execution of massive road and rail infrastructure our foreign reserves had grown to over $47 billion – about $4billion more than that of South Africa.

“Under the administration of President Buhari, no Minister will purchase bullet proof cars with public funds, nor will an oil Minister junket the globe with family members in private jets at the public expense.

“Nigerians were taken for granted for too long and have vowed enough is now enough. No degree of blackmail and wicked scheming will make us return to the years the locusts had eaten.

“We have crossed the Red Sea and have no intention to return to our ugly past,” the statement stressed.

It added that while the PDP and its agents attempt to discredit government’s on-going fight against corruption, it should answer if the anti-corruption efforts were being carried out within the ambit of the law.

The statement urged President Buhari, law enforcement agencies, anti-graft bodies and Nigerians not to be sidetracked by the desperate attempt by the PDP and its agents to discredit the on-going fight against corruption.

It assured Nigerians that the APC-led federal government would not fail the country like PDP’s wasted 16 years.

“While the PDP continue to spew lies in its cheap attempt at opposition politics, President Buhari is concentrating on the important work at hand; clearing the mess and rebuilding the country in all facets,” the statement stressed.

Meanwhile, TRACK NEWS earlier reported that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) alleged that the pressure by the Presidency for the reconvening of the Senate was out of a sinister motive to arrest and impeach Senate President Bukola Saraki and his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu.

The party insisted that the call to reopen Senate has nothing to do with any emergency in the approval of the budget of the Independent National Electoral Commission for the 2019 elections as claimed.