Joseph Bakare
Ekiti State Governor, Chief Ayodele Fayose has said President Muhammadu Buhari is presiding over the most corrupt government in the history of Nigeria and protecting looters of the country’s commonwealth.
Fayose said Nigerians have seen through their deceit and will no longer buy that fake image of integrity they are trying to sell.
The governor said; “With the Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, saying that corruption has become more endemic in Nigeria than it was in the last 16 years, with the country moving 12 places below its rating, a honourable government would have stopped using fight against corruption as its major achievement and releasing names of people that are still under trial as looters just to cover up its failure.”
He said the first list of alleged looters released by the government was politically motivated and the second one was an afterthought that was done to cover the shame of the government because Nigerians questioned the first list.
In a release issued on Monday, by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, Governor Fayose reiterated that Nigerians were more interested in their welfare, security of their lives and physical development of the country than tales of concocted lists of corrupt Nigerians, who were only corrupt in the estimation of the government because they did not belong to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
He said; “the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) never pretended to Nigerians that it had corrupt people in its fold and the party never protected them. Today, the party has gone ahead to offload the corrupt elements into the APC and they were not only accepted gladly into the party, they were given prominent appointments by the President.”
The governor, who likened President Buhari to a father who is protecting his children that are armed robbers but calling on security agents to arrest children of his neighbour for stealing meat from their mother’s pot, said; “For any list of alleged looters to be credible, the President, who is protecting looters should be number one while those looters in his government should follow.
“His nomination form was bought with proceeds of corruption and those who bought the form and financed his election were paid back with the return of all their seized properties, ministerial appointments and even disappearance of prosecution witnesses in EFCC cases,” the governor said.
Speaking further, Governor Fayose said; “A government that reinstated and promoted Abdulrasheed Maina, who was declared wanted for corrupt practices by the International Police Organisation, (INTERPOL) and dismissed in 2013 for alleged N2.1 billion pension fraud and used APC broom to sweep the $25 billion contracts scam in the NNPC under the carpet is nothing but a government of plunderers and that is the clear definition of Buhari’s government.
“It was in this same government that the Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole suspended the National Health Insurance Scheme Executive Secretary, Professor Usman Yusuf for alleged corruption and the President recalled him even without the knowledge of the Minister.
“Up till today, nothing has happened to the probe panel on the alleged N500 million bribery said to have been paid to the President’s Chief of Staff (COS), Abba Kyari by officials of MTN to influence government to discontinue its heavy stance on the $5 billion fine imposed on the company.
“Therefore, no matter how hard they try now, they can no longer hoodwink Nigerians with their deceit of fight against corruption. Even APC Senator, Shehu Sani once said that the President uses insecticide to fight corruption involving his perceived political opponents, but use deodorant when it affects his own men.”