The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has claimed that there are more corrupt people in the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) than in the ruling party at the centre.
The party also expressed its support for President Goodluck Jonathan’s strategies of fighting corruption, saying they would eventually help the country win the fight.
Describing the President’s strategy against corruption as a “bold institutional framework,” it urged Nigerians to support the president’s fight to make the country more habitable
The ACN had, in the past few weeks, slammed the president and the PDP over the corruption status of the country, blaming him for fuelling it rather than establish strategies to curb it.
But according to the PDP, no government in the history of Nigeria has attempted the bold initiatives that the party has taken to fight corruption.
“The PDP-led Federal Government created the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) as well as the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC). No matter the criticisms trailing their performance, these bodies have posted degrees of successes. Most importantly, these institutions are meant to outgrow partisan practices and given time, become inviolable winnower on the chaff of corruption,” PDP argued in a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh.
It reminded the public of the enactment of the Freedom of Information Act it masterminded as a sign of its commitment to ensuring that irrespective of class, Nigerians would be fully informed and have access to hitherto classified information, saying that the bottom line is to make governance collective and participatory.
It branded the ACN a one-track-minded party, whose members are never optimistic, which is the reason the party has always attempted to rubbish the integrity of the president. It reminded ACN of the country’s situation before the 1999 elections, saying that under the PDP, Nigerians can now enjoy free and fair elections. It also queried the fairness of internal elections of the ACN since its creation.
“The 2011 general elections in which President Goodluck Jonathan participated as an incumbent was adjudged locally and internationally as the most incredible in our recent records. The subsequent state governorship elections, which the Ondo election is the most recent of, have towed the same path,” the statement observed.
“A comparison with the electoral shenanigans and barefaced robbery that go on in the opposition-controlled states in the name of local government elections, as witnessed recently in Ogun and Lagos States, is just one out of the myriads of ways the ACN is throwing spanner in the wheel of anti-corruption.
“Under the PDP-led Federal Government, the nation has witnessed high-profile probes as well as convictions. The National Assembly, under the leadership of our great party, has also upped the scrutiny in its oversight functions. Even though we are making no claims to having stamped out corruption, we insist that appreciable progress is being made.
“Yes, there is corruption but corrupt persons know full well today that the loop of the long arm of the law is not in any way broken, that questions must come up if not immediately, definitely later. But what is the ACN’s contribution to freeing our society from corruption as a Party controlling six out of 36 states of the Federation?”
The statement added that when the ACN pontificates on corruption, it carefully grows forgetful of the fact that the states under it are the bastion of corruption and that its national leader is neck deep in corrupt practices, as “one man’s greed is feeding fat on tax payers money in the six states.”
It reminded the ACN of the controversies arising from the question mark on the educational credentials of its leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, describing it as “a monumental crisis on the psyche of the current and upcoming generations of Nigerians and that such blatant fraud is the cradle of corruption in the larger Nigerian society.”
