N33bn NEMA Report: Group blasts PDP for attacking Osinbajo

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been berated for attacking Vice President Prof. Yemi Osinbajo over the report of a purported N33 billion corruption allegation in the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).

In a statement issued in Abuja on Sunday, the Coordinator of the Change Support Group, Ibrahim Yakubu said that the statement by the PDP Spokesperson Mr Kola Ologbondiyan was misleading and full of fallacies.

He said that the report by the House of Representatives which carried out the investigation did not in any way indict the Vice President and as such there was no basis for the attack by the PDP.

“Our attention has been drawn to a statement credited to the spokesperson of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr Kola Ologbondiyan, calling on Vice President Yemi Osinbajo to answer a purported N33 billion corruption allegation against him.

“The PDP in the statement also claimed that funds meant for the procurement and distribution of food to IDPs were mismanaged and that no state in the Northeast ever received such aid from the Federal Government under the said programme.

“Besides the fact that the claims are not only baseless, misleading, mischievous, and a desperate move by the PDP to discredit the person of the Vice President, the statement is full of fallacies and imaginations best concocted, only by the PDP.

“First of all, the house report did not in any part or whole, indict the Vice President or indicate that he committed any act of fraud as blindly claimed by the PDP spokesman.

“As a matter of fact, the presidential approvals were well within the clear constitutional authority of the Acting President, who needed to take emergency steps to forestall acute food shortages in the affected States and there was nothing illegal or unconstitutional about them.

“So, describing the entire action as fraudulent or a breath of the procurement Act is in itself a clear demonstration of the lack of understanding of the law which the PDP in its 16-year rule violated at will” he said.

Yakubu stressed that the attempt by the PDP had demonstrated the party’s true nature and what it has in stock for Nigerians.

He said that the PDP was yet to come to terms with the reality on ground in Nigeria today which is the fact that the era of impunity and brazen looting of resources is over.

“Gone are the days when top government officials sign off billions of naira and share among a few, igoring the plight of the masses. of course there are countless tales of such magnitude of impunity in the days of the PDP.

“The Vice President had never signed off money whether as acting President or in his capacity as chair of the NEMA board and no report has ever indicted him of such act.

“One wonders what informed the sensational headline calling on Prof. Osinbajo to clear his name in a N33 billion fraud.

“The party’s statement also shows that it lacks human sympathy and has demonstrated same during its reign at the Federal level which is why it will describe a presidential intervention meant to save the lives of many as mere fraud.

“How could the party have imagined that the then Acting President would defy advise from competent bodies and watch helplessly, many IDPs starve to death even when he could do something that was not in contravention of the Constitution,” he said.

He added that the strategy for food distribution in Nigeria which had cut out all middle men had been commended in many quarters and never criticized by the beneficiaries or the state governments.

The group therefore wondered how the PDP got its information that the IDPs did not benefit from the programme.

“Let it be known for the upteempt time, that the Vice President remains a man of integrity and law abiding citizen who cannot be intimidated by insinuations that are unsubstantiated.

“It is therefore instructive to call on the PDP and its cohorts to find better ways of going about its business of redeeming its image and winning the hearts and minds of Nigerians ahead of 2019.

“Damaging the image and reputation of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo will never win back the trust given to them by Nigerians in the past. It only reminds Nigerians of the dark days of recklessness and impunity that characterised the PDP government.