The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday said that “the memo by the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami, indicting the acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, of a financial scam, has further exposed the abysmal corruption, deception and hypocrisy that pervade the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.”
The party said “the latest report coming from none other than the AGF, the EFCC’s supervising minister, who believably has unhindered access to facts and documents related to the anti-graft issues, must be received by President Buhari as a huge demand on him to clean up the system.
According to the party, “it is the worst national embarrassment in the history of Nigeria, that the head of the anti-corruption agency in an administration that prides itself on zero tolerance for corruption, is being dragged on allegation of diversion of recovered funds and fraudulent sale of assets seized by the agency.”
In a statement by its national publicity secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, PDP noted that “Malami’s memo has also exposed the credentials of Buhari’s anti-corruption architecture, rubbished his standing as Africa Union (AU) Anti-Corruption Champion and shattered our national integrity in the international arena.”
It asked Magu to immediately step aside for a full-scale investigation to be conducted by the National Assembly.
According to the PDP, with the allegation of diversion of recovered funds, the EFCC Chairman has lost all moral rectitude to preside over our nation’s anti-corruption agency to investigate and prosecute others until he comes clean of these horrible allegations.
“Given this administration’s history of concealments and cover for indicted officials, our party enjoins the National Assembly to immediately constitute a joint ad-hoc committee and commence an independent investigation into these alleged disgraceful acts which has the potencies of collapsing our nation’s integrity before the comity of nations.
“Nigerians and the world have further seen why corruption has worsened under the Buhari administration, as documented by credible international organisations, including the Transparency International (TI),” the party stated.
The party further passed a no-confidence vote on Buhari’s anti-graft war, saying: “Indeed, our party, Nigerians across the board and, of course, members of the international community, have completely lost confidence in President Buhari’s capacity to fight corruption as he has not demonstrated the littlest effort against corruption since he came into office in 2015.
“Mr. President had continued to run a system that condones corrupt practices by officials of his administration while providing cover for individuals indicted for corruption, including those who are now serving as cabinet ministers and other federal appointees in his government.”
The PDP recalled that President Buhari had insisted on Magu as the EFCC Chairman despite his rejection by the Senate over reports by the Department of State Services (DSS), which raised certain integrity issues against him.
It also recalled that the DSS report, which was read out on the floor of the Senate, allegedly stated, “Magu has failed the integrity test and will eventually constitute a liability to the anti-corruption stand of the current government.”
