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The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Thursday called on Nigerians to reject and resist the renewed attempt by the Presidency to loot $1billion from the national coffers to finance President Muhammadu Buhari’s re-election bid come 2019.
PDP also urged the National Assembly to commence appropriate constitutional legislative actions against President Buhari for gross misconduct in unilaterally approving the release of the fund without allowing for the application of legislative instrument.
The party’s spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, in a statement made available to newsmen in Abuja said, “its investigation revealed that the Presidency wilfully sidestepped the National Assembly so as to avoid legislative scrutiny and accountability and pave way for the diversion of the fund for selfish partisan purposes”.
The statement further stated, “It is a notorious fact that the Presidency and the APC have been plotting to loot this $I billion from our heavily depleted Excess Crude Account (ECA) since last year, using the guise of fight against insurgency”.
“This is the same Buhari administration that has been boasting of having technically defeated the insurgents. This is also an administration that is not known to have exhausted subsisting budgetary allocations for defense”.
“Nigerians are thoroughly disappointed that President Buhari; the same African Union (AU) ‘anti-corruption champion’, who swore to be above board and to protect the constitution and our laws, will allow himself to fall for the temptation of resorting to ways and means which are totally at variance with the laws and all democratic tenets”.
The opposition party affirmed that democracy thrives on constitutional processes of separation of powers, due diligence and transparency and not on totalitarian tendencies.
It also maintained that, “the President, as a leader, reasonably ought to have known that he is in no way above the law”.
It is on this premise that PDP urged the National Assembly to look into the constitution and impose appropriate legislative instruments against Buhari if any part of the 1999 constitution (as amended) has been breached by this unilateral decision.
The party further urged the National Assembly to scrutinise the constitution and other statute books for the purposes of strengthening the laws guiding the application of funds in our country, particularly under this inherently corrupt and incompetent administration.
It also alleged that the Buhari administration was using the fight against insurgency as a conduit to siphon funds, “as evinced in the alleged looting of the N18 billion Internally Displaced Persons (IDP)’s funds, we demand for an independent investigation into the processes of release and utilization of all special funds for war against insurgency in the last three years”.
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