The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Wednesday said
it has uncovered fresh plots by the cabal in the presidency and the All
Progressives Congress (APC) to use fake subheads and duplicated projects as
ploy to re-loot the recently repatriated Sani Abacha looted $311millon.
The party signaled that the cabal had perfected the
use of fake subheads as nomenclatures to mislead those who repatriated the fund
and pave way to corner the money to their private pockets as they had done with
earlier repatriated funds.
The PDP in a statement issued by the National
Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, alleged that part of the strategy of
the cabal is to hype hazy subheads and stampedes the dissipation of the funds
without the statutory approval of the National Assembly, which would enable
them to muddle up accountability processes, conceal their fraud and divert the
attention of the unsuspecting public from the scam.
According to the main opposition party, “The
fraudulent dissipation of the funds will then be followed with false
performance claims as well as blackmailing and intimidation of Nigerians
demanding both transparency and accountability in the handling of the money.”
The PDP noted that such had become the standard
ruse by the cabal and APC leaders, who also looted the earlier repatriated $322
million under the guise of sharing money to the poor in 19 states, and had no
answers to allegations that more than 90 percent of the 300,000 households
listed as beneficiaries were phony family names.
Nigerians, it said, would recall how the claims of
the APC government was rubbished by the First Lady, Aisha Buhari, who had
alerted the country that the N500 billion Social Investment Programme of the
Buhari administration was hugely shrouded in corruption and that bulk of the
money did not get to the poor and vulnerable.
Furthermore, the party noted that the federal government
had failed to publish the details of the alleged APC leaders who own the
consulting firms that was allegedly paid billions of naira up front as
consultancy fee for the ‘sharing’ of the money, which was not also passed
through the constitutionally required approval of the National Assembly.
The APC-led federal government, PDP said, “had also
failed to account for the $308 million repatriated in February for which it
cannot point to any project, but rather faced with allegations of unbridled
looting by the cabal and certain APC leaders, including those exposed to be
receiving huge percentages from repatriated funds.”
The PDP, therefore, urged Nigerians to note that
the APC government had remained silent on the report by the United States
Department of State that the Nigerian Government plots to funnel this
repatriated money to certain individuals connected to the APC.
PDP added that the report had exposed that the federal
government was even in the process of funneling $100 million of the funds to
Kebbi State Governor, Atiku Bagudu; the chairman of APC Governors’ Forum, who
was reportedly indicted by the US for allegedly helping in transferring
billions of dollar out of the country during the military era.
It said it is also strange that the federal government
is keeping an ominous silence on how much, in line with its style, would be
farmed out to vested interests as legal fees on the repatriated funds.
The PDP, therefore, counseled that this repatriated
$311 million should be safeguarded from the antics of the APC cabal.
"Our party demands that the fund should be
surrendered to the National Assembly for proper statutory appropriation, and
urge Nigerians to resist schemes by the cabal to prevent them from demanding
explanations on the looting of repatriated funds," the party said.
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