Probe Diezani, Orubebe now, N/Delta youths beg Buhari

.           Buhari just making noise on corruption – Fayose

TOYIN ANISULOWO, Ado-Ekiti

The Niger-Delta Youth Vanguard for APC has lamented that despite the billions of naira which accrued to the region through the Niger Delta Ministry and the Niger Delta Development Commission (NNDC), the region has been left with nothing to show than a poor road network and polluted waters.

It blamed the underdevelopment of the Niger Delta region on past leaders appointed from the region to head the NDDC and tasked President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately commence investigations into alleged sharp practices in the commission and the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

The call synchronizes with others that have specifically requested a complete probe of the political heads of the federal government agencies and ministries involved with Niger-Delta affairs and the oil sector, notable of which are the former Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Elder Godsdey Orubebe and his counterpart in the Petroleum Ministry, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke.

The group, in a statement signed by its President, Comrade Fredrick Ujobolo, noted that the Federal Government would not make any significant headway in the fight against corruption if it fails to probe developments in the NNPC and the NDDC.

Stressing that the region would experience rapid development through close monitoring of the allocation accruing to it, the group noted: “The Niger Delta Development Commission has become the oil well for some senators and members of the house of reps where the highest looting occurs daily without recourse to the development of the region. NDDC has become even worse than NNPC and I appeal to Buhari to look at the sharp practices”.

While advising the President to be mindful of sycophants and those who joined the All Progressives Congress (APC) after the presidential election, the statement said, “Those who said APC cannot work in the Niger-Delta region are the same people now singing the praises of the Buhari administration because their plans had failed and now see themselves as members of APC, when they don’t know how the party got to this level”.

Meanwhile, the Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, has criticised the anti-corruption stance of the federal government under President Muhammadu Buhari, describing it as mere noise-making, a witch-hunt and a diversionary tactic to hoodwink the public into overlooking the seeming failure of the government to deliver on its electoral promises.

Speaking through Lere Olayinka, his special assistant on public communications and new media, Fayose said that the president’s recent claim of knowing the location of stolen funds was unwarranted if he indeed has a handle on how to recover them.

“If President Mohammadu Buhari knows exactly where the stolen funds are kept and who looted the funds, he does not need all these public announcements.

“Rather, he should make public names of the looters and bring back the purported stolen funds, the location of which he has identified. It is when he is able to bring back the money that he should make announcements of recovered funds.

“You don’t announce a process to the public. Rather, you announce the results because that is what is of interest to the people. It is like you are announcing that you know where armed robbers reside, won’t they change their location?”

Speaking further, he said: “What the All Progressives Congress (APC) spin-doctors and their collaborators in the presidency are doing is simple. It is such that when there is nothing to tell the people as per the rising Boko Haram attacks, dollar and other foreign currencies exchange rates, petrol pump price and other seeming failed promises of the APC federal government, they will accuse former president Goodluck Jonathan and his men of corruption, insult the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and make noise about fighting corruption.

“President Buhari and his men should however know that Nigeria of today is different from that of 1983 and the system under which they are operating now is also different. Nigerians are watching and unlike 1983, nothing can prevent them from asking questions, which they are already asking.”

He challenged Buhari to start the anti-corruption fight from his party, saying that Nigerians know those who bankrolled the president’s election and are waiting for him to reveal their sources of income.

“Some of those who sponsored the president’s election have not done any other jobs apart from holding public offices. Yet, they provided private jets and funds with which the president campaigned across the length and breadth of Nigeria. He should let Nigerians know where they got money to buy private jets and the several billions of naira spent on his election.

“Mr President and his men should know that these planned efforts to brand PDP as a party of corrupt people and suppress the giant strides of the Jonathan administration won’t work because Nigerians know that APC is peopled with more corrupt people and the President must treat the issue of corruption without looking at political parties.

“No one sits with corruption to fight corruption because as it is today, President Buhari is sitting amongst corrupt people and he must first extricate himself from the comity of corruption that he is with before his anti-corruption stance can be accorded respect.”