The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) wishes to express our shock at the loud silence of President Muhammadu Buhari on the humongous corruption scandal and other illegalities currently being exposed at the nation’s cash cow, the NNPC in which two of his henchmen, the Minister of State for Petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu and the Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Maikanti Baru are the dramatis personae.
2. As a political party, we expect 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.
3. He should do this to correct the open impression Nigerians have about his so called anti-corruption war; that it’s just a tool of persecution of perceived enemies.
4. We view the allegations levelled against Baru by 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.
5. In this light, we demand an immediate suspension of the NNPC GMD so that proper investigation can be carried out by the relevant anti-corruption agencies.
6. Ordinarily if there was sincerity in the anti-corruption war , President Muhammadu Buhari should not have waited for any prompting before he takes a decisive action on this matter, but as customary with his administration, we suspect that he’s trying to shield Baru as he did for Babachir Lawal, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) whom he merely suspended to allow the hullabaloo generated by the fraud perpetrated in the management of the emergency fund for the IDPs, die down. Also up till now we have never heard anything again about the millions of dollars and billions of Naira discovered at an Ikoyi apartment.
7. Nigerians have not forgotten the acts of illegality and double standard perpetrated by the president in refusing to hand over Babachir Lawal to the EFCC for proper investigation and possible prosecution for graft, but rather, preferring to give the task of investigation of the open sleaze to the Vice President, in a move not known to any law of this nation.
8. Even at that, the report of the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo led committee is gathering dust on the shelf of the President because he probably could not bear to see one of his closest allies punished by the laws of the land, even when all facts show that blatant and unbridled theft was perpetrated by the president’s man.
9. The sum involved in the NNPC scandal is $ 25 Billion. Less than 10% percent of that ($2 billion) is involved in the so called arms fund allegedly converted by the former NSA for which hundreds of Nigerians have been arrested and hounded. Nigerians can now see the hypocrisy in the so called anti- corruption fight. We may as well say that the privileged class of APC members enjoys total immunity from the anti-corruption campaign.
10. Tired of this double-faced corruptions fight and cover ups we demand an immediate commencement of investigation into this latest exposed sleaze by another of President Buhari’s men.
