At a press conference addressed by its spokesman, Dayo Adeyeye, in Abuja, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday declared that the alleged $25 billion contract fraud at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) was perpetrated to raise funds for the re-election bid of President Muhammadu Buhari.
The opposition party, which described as disgusting what it called a high level of looting in the current administration, expressed shock at “the loud silence of President Buhari on the humongous corruption and other illegalities currently being exposed at the nation’s cash cow, the NNPC.
“The $25 billion said to have been the subject of the latest controversy, when converted to naira, is about N9 trillion, a sum that is bigger than the nation’s annual budget,” PDP noted. “This is one of the very many reasons the nation’s economy has nosedived under the inept administration of the APC.”
The PDP further said: “Powerful people at the corridors of power are tacitly involved in this. If the president’s powerful Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari could sit on the NNPC board and such a calamity is taking place without an eyelid being blinked, we are forced to believe that the stealing is being done to the advantage of the president who has shown by his body language that the only thing that matters most to him for now is his second term ambition.
“Will it be considered a ‘hate speech’ if we say the money being stolen by President Buhari’s men is being kept aside into a special pool for the prosecution of his second term ambition?”
The PDP challenged the president to prove it wrong by allowing his allies “being caught up in acts of brazen stealing of our commonwealth to get punished in accordance with the laws of the land. Anything aside from this, we will take as confirmation of our suspicion that the rottenness is from the very top.”
The opposition party said it expected that “the president, who prides himself as an indefatigable corruption fighter, would for once try to live above board, by genuinely allowing one of his own, accused of corruption, get properly investigated and prosecuted as a show of his impartiality in the war against corruption.”
On the need to place the Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Maikanti Baru, on immediate suspension, the opposition party said: “We view the allegations levelled against Baru by the Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, as too grave to be swept under the carpet and we insist that the NNPC GMD must be treated like an accused who should not have the opportunity to influence investigation into his alleged misdeeds.
“In this light, we demand an immediate suspension of Baru so that proper investigation can be carried out by the relevant anti-corruption agencies.”
Calling on the Senate to do an open investigation on the matter, the PDP said: “Much as we commend the National Assembly for indicating interest in probing the allegations against the NNPC GMD as approved in the adoption of the motion moved by Senator Samuel Anyanwu at the Wednesday plenary, we appeal to the leadership of the Senate to prevail on the Ad-hoc committee set up for the purpose of the investigation, to make their sitting open to all Nigerians so that nothing will be surreptitiously swept under the carpet.”
