Last week, the National publicity
secretary of PDP, Dayo Adeyeye, released a statement in which he accused
the Buhari-led APC government of treating the anti-corruption fight. Adeyeye's
comment was in reaction to the EFCC handing over to former Bayelsa state
governor, Timipre Sylva, the 48 houses they had initially seized from him.
In reaction to Dayo's statement,
the National Publicity Secretary of APC, Bolaji Abdullahi and the
National vice-chairman of the party, south-south, Honourable Hilard Ntufam
Etta, granted an interview in which they berated PDP's spokesperson for
his comment. According to Etta, the PDP spokesperson's comment was a joke and
that nobody could have looted as much as Goodluck Jonathan's
administration did.
“My take on the matter is that
the claim is comedy from the pit of hell. No government, not just in Nigeria,
but any part of the world could possibly be as corrupt as Jonathan’s
government. It isn’t possible for human being to contrive or conspire again to
have that kind of sleaze. Not anywhere in the world. That’s just my reaction"
the APC chieftain said
Well, the former president
through his media aide, Reno Omokri, has reacted to the APC spokesperson
comment. Read the statement below
"My attention has been drawn
to a statement by the APC and released in some newspapers with the headline
'Nobody could have looted like Jonathan, APC replies PDP'
It is indeed disheartening that
the All Progressive Congress has again decided to stand truth on its head by
claiming that nobody looted Nigeria like former President Goodluck Jonathan.
The statement by the national
publicity secretary of the APC, Bolaji Abdullahi, a man who once benefited
from former President Jonathan's generosity and rode on his back to become a
minister, shows that the party is at its wits end and is running out of lies to
feed Nigerians.
First of all, no court has
indicted or convicted former President Jonathan of corruption neither can they
do so because the former President was not corrupt and did not loot.
We remind the APC that former
President Jonathan once truthfully declared that he has no accounts or property
abroad. There is a Freedom of Information Act signed into law by Dr. Jonathan
and I urge Bolaji Abdullahi and those who pull his puppet strings to take
advantage of it in verifying that assertion.
In any case, if the Jonathan administration
was corrupt, what does that say about Bolaji Abdullahi who was a member of that
government for three out of its five years? By indicting Dr. Jonathan, Malam
Abdullahi also indicts himself, after all, he did not resign from that
government until former President Jonathan sacked him.
Bolaji Abdullahi, like Senator
George Akume, is only being clever by half in indicting the PDP as the cause of
Nigeria's problems.
Such is the APC's hypocrisy that
Senator Akume said 'PDP caused the pain we are in'. Senator Akume, like Bolaji
Abdullahi forgets that the PDP ruled for 16 years and Akume was a PDP Governor
for 8 of those years and a PDP Senator for 4 of those years.
Is it that one suddenly becomes a
saint by joining the APC after being in the PDP for 12 years?
It is funny that no evidence of
looting has ever been established against Dr. Jonathan, yet the APC believes he
looted, yet though evidence abounds that ex military head of state, General
Sani Abacha looted, they believe and have publicly said 'Abacha did not loot'.
Over $5 billion has been traced
to Abacha and over $1 billion has been recovered from him including $320
million recovered under the Buhari administration alone. The question for Malam
Abdullahi is this-how much has been recovered from Dr. Goodluck Jonathan?
No wonder Nigeria has not
improved in the Corruption Perception Index of Transparency International since
2014 when we made our best improvement till date under Dr. Jonathan.
Apparently, after sacking people like Bolaji Abdullahi, Transparency
International saw fit to improve Nigeria's Corruption Perception Rating by 8
points. The position we occupied in 2014 because of Jonathan (136) is the same
position we occupy today. No progress has been made from where he left off.
It is also sad for the APC to
claim that its hands were tied by the courts forcing the government to
authorize the release of 48 houses seized from Timipre Sylva, a major APC donor
and chieftain.
Such stories should only be told
to children on the TV program 'Tales by Moonlight'.
We ask Nigerians to note that
even when the same courts ordered the release on bail of Col. Sambo Dasuki and
Sheikh Ibrahim el-Zak Zaky, these individuals were not released in defiance of
court orders.
It is obvious that the APC
chooses which court order to obey based on how much the person involved has
donated to the party.
It is also sad that Malam
Abdullahi, who knows the truth, continues with the propaganda that Jonathan
said 'stealing is not corruption'. Bolaji knows the truth because he was serving
Dr. Goodluck Jonathan as a minister when this incidence occurred. Former
President Jonathan merely quoted the then Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice
Dahiru Musdapher, who tried to differentiate between stealing and-corruption.
His Lordship the then CJN said
most of the cases charged to courts and celebrated as cases of corruption are
actually cases of stealing. No one has said stealing is good. Bolaji's APC
should stop this falsehood and propaganda.
Why the APC continues to
circulate beer parlor gossip, I wouldn't know. Even the Nigerian Senate headed
by a former PDP governor now APC Senate President accused the APC Federal
Government for spreading beer parlour rumour on corruption (front page of the
Daily Sun Friday September 8, 2017). Bolaji's statement is another beer parlour
propaganda.
The APC government has budgeted
over N14tr in the last two years. Bolaji should tell Nigerians what the
government has done with the money. Nigerians will not know the level of
corruption in Bolaji's APC government till another government takes over.
A government that harbors a man
who was indicted by a duly constituted Judicial Commission and even makes him a
minister has no moral authority to point fingers at others.
Finally, I appeal to Bolaji
Abdullahi and the APC to focus on explaining to Nigerians why despite the fact
that it claims to have recovered almost 2 trillion from the Jonathan
administration, Nigeria still wants to borrow 1.6 trillion.
With the amount 'recovered',
Nigeria should have had enough not to borrow and a little extra on top to lend
to others.
These lies only go to show that
you can use propaganda to get to power, but you cannot use propaganda to stay
in power.
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No matter how you explain to them that Jonathan is not that bad they will never understand. But one day they will surely get the point. This presently govt hmmm.
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