The Delta State chapter of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has said that the take-back of an earlier false claim by the Accountant General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, that the recovered £4.2m had been returned to the state government’s treasury, has exposed the evil intentions of the All Progressives’ publicity machinery in the state.
PDP’s State Publicity Secretary, Dr. Ifeanyi M. Osuoza made the declaration on Thursday in a statement issued from Asaba. He decried the vituperations on governor Okowa by the APC publicity team in the State led by Mr. Sylvester Imonina following Idris earlier claim that the money had been returned to the state.
The attack on the governor, Osuoza said, “has further exposed the propagandists as ill-mannered, unrefined” persons who would go to any length to tell lies Okowa’s administration.
He did not give details of the attacks on the governor, but said that the APC attack team had called Okowa “unprintable names”.
Idirs had declared on Tuesday that the £4.2m looted by a former Governor of Delta State, James Ibori, had been returned by the Federal Government to the state government,
Idris made the disclosure in Abuja when he appeared before the House of Representatives’ Ad hoc Committee on Assessment and Status of All Recovered Loots Movable and Immovable Assets from 2002 to 2020 by Agencies of the Federal Government of Nigeria for Effective Efficient Management and Utilisation.
A day after the declaration, Idris recanted on his words, saying the funds were yet to be returned to the State government.
“The issue of the £4.2m loot has not been properly resolved. The money is still being awaited, after which the issues around it will be resolved before further action is taken. For now, no money has been returned to Delta State,” he said.
“We commend the nobility of Deltans who held themselves together when APC’s ‘nattering nabobs of negativism’ spewed their distorted and deceptive information of a non-existent payment to Delta State, and for which without double-checking for the fact of the matter, they unabashedly, with gusto rushed into conclusions,” Dr. Osuoza said.
He said the mission of such a person, which is the same with their plan to tarnish the image of the governor, his administration, and the PDP “evidently turned out to be ill-fated, as the Accountant General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris withdrew his earlier claim in a statement”.
Osuoza wondered whether Mr. Imonina, APC’s chief officer in misinformation and disinformation has heard of the above clarification by the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation.
“A person of character and good conscience would have also recanted and withdrawn all the false theatrics made in the name of a Press Release by now just like the OAGF has done?
“But no, not those who have sworn to at all cost bring down Governor Okowa, his administration, and paint the well-loved PDP black. We laugh at their foolishness and indiscretion,” he said.
