The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has described President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption fight as a huge fraud and a racket.
The PDP stated this on Friday while reacting to the memo by the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami, indicting the acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, of financial scam.
In its response via a statement on Friday by its national publicity secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP said Malami’s memo has exposed the credentials of President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption architecture, rubbished his standing as Africa Union (AU) Anti-Corruption Champion and shattered our national integrity in the international arena.
“Indeed, our party, Nigerians across board and, of course, members of the international community, have completely lost confidence in President Buhari’s capacity to fight corruption as he has not demonstrated the littlest effort against corruption since he came into office in 2015.
“Instead, Mr. President had continued to run a system that condones corrupt practices by officials of his administration while providing cover for individuals indicted for corruption including those who are now serving as cabinet ministers and other federal appointees in his government,” the statement read in part.
The PDP recalled that President Buhari had insisted on Magu as the EFCC chairman despite his rejection by the Senate over reports by the Department of State Services (DSS), which raised certain integrity issues against him.
The party further recalled that the DSS report, which was read out on the floor of the Senate, allegedly stated that “Magu has failed the integrity test and will eventually constitute a liability to the anti-corruption stand of the current government”.
The party, therefore, held that the latest report coming from none other than the Attorney General of the Federation; the EFCC’s supervising minister, who believably had unhindered access to facts and documents related to the anti-graft issues, must be received by President Buhari as a huge demand on him to clean up the system.
The opposition party called on the National Assembly to institute joint Ad-hoc Committee to investigate the allegation.