PDP blasts APC govt. over attack on Ekweremadu

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has blasted the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) for using anti-corruption war to blackmail and intimidate political opponents, which the opposition political party said reflected in the suit filed against the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, by the APC government seeking forfeiture of asset allegedly not declared by Ekweremadu.

PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbodiyan, in a statement, was of the view that APC is not prepared to fight corruption, protesting that the APC government’s obsession with Ekweremadu was an indication that the APC is out to scandalise, persecute, and bring down its perceived opponents.

The federal government, on Wednesday, approached the Federal High Court in Abuja seeking order to freeze all ‘hidden assets’ that were traced to Ekweremadu.

Festus Keyamo, counsel to the Special Presidential Investigation Panel for the Recovery of Public Property, filed an ex-parte motion, requesting an order of the court to confiscate the Deputy Senate President property.

The PDP in the statement declared:
“In the current matter, apart from relying on an obsolete law to dabble into the roles of the Code of Conduct Bureau, we are not surprised that the panel could not carry out a thorough and independent investigation on the purported property of the senator, but relied on a petition by the former Chief Judge of Enugu State, Justice Innocent Umezulike, who is standing corruption trial in several courts, after his removal from office by the National Judicial Council (NJC) in 2017.

“We recall that the senator accused Umezulike and some politicians of stealing and doctoring his will, inserting non-existent properties or properties that had nothing to do with him. It is also instructive that this calculated smear campaign is in the guise of forfeiture of phantom assets came on the heels of Senator Ekweremadu’s alarm and scathing criticism of the APC-led administration over the nation’s deteriorating democracy and in the midst of the ongoing executive-legislature faceoff, in which a ranking senator of the APC extraction identified Ekweremadu as a pillar of support to the Senate President.

“This government and party have a wet appetite for prosecution and media trial of the opposition while investigation is on, but refuses to prosecute its members and friends indicted by even its own presidential or ministerial panels.

“While members of the opposition are taken to court on stretchers, the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Engr. Babachir Lawal, indicted by both the Senate and a presidential panel only got a pat on the back.

“The APC Federal Government has failed to prosecute those involved in the Ikoyigate scandal, and the recall of fugitive Abdulrasheed Maina, among others. Ekweremadu is a major symbol of the opposition. We believe that this is part of the grand plan to strangulate the PDP ahead of the 2019 elections and we will resist.

“Now that the federal government has gleefully inundated the public with the imaginary assets of the deputy senate president, can it now also publish the full assets of the President Muhammadu Buhari, Vice President Yemi Osinbanjo, cabinet ministers and APC governors, who have all failed to make public their assets as promised during the 2015 election.”