The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has asked Nigerians to reject and resist the recent approval of $1billion by President Muhammadu Buhari to fight the insurgency in the northeast.
The PDP is alleging that the APC is planning to use the money to finance President Buhari’s interests ahead of the All Progressives Congress’ National Convention and the 2019 campaign.
The party through its spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan is also asking the National Assembly to commence appropriate legislative actions against President Buhari for gross misconduct in unilaterally approving the release of the fund without allowing for the application of the legislative instrument.
According to them, the presidency deliberately ignored the National Assembly to avoid legislative scrutiny and accountability and pave way for the diversion of the fund for selfish partisan purposes.
But the President during the approval said the money was the same approved by the state governors to be withdrawn from the Excess Crude Account to fight insurgency in the country.
However, the PDP alleges that the Presidency and the APC have been plotting to loot this $I billion from our heavily depleted Excess Crude Account (ECA) since last year, using the guise of the fight against the insurgency.
“This is the same Buhari administration that has been boasting of having technically defeated the insurgents. This is also an administration that is not known to have exhausted subsisting budgetary allocations for defence.
“Nigerians are thoroughly disappointed that President Buhari; the same African Union (AU) ‘anti-corruption champion’, who swore to be above board and to protect the constitution and our laws, will allow himself to fall for the temptation of resorting to ways and means which are totally at variance with the laws and all democratic tenets.
“Democracy thrives on constitutional processes of separation of powers, due diligence and transparency and not on totalitarian tendencies”.
For the PDP, they believe the President, as a leader, reasonably ought to have known that he is in no way above the law.
We, therefore, urge the National Assembly to look into the constitution and impose appropriate legislative instruments against Mr President, if any part of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) has been breached by this unilateral decision.
“We further urge the National Assembly to scrutinize the constitution and other statute books for the purposes of strengthening the laws guiding the application of funds in our country, particularly under this inherently corrupt and incompetent administration.
“Moreover, since it has come to light that the Buhari administration is using the fight against insurgency as a conduit to siphon funds, as evinced in the alleged looting of the N18 billion Internally Displaced Persons (IDP)’s funds, we demand for an independent investigation into the processes of release and utilization of all special funds for war against insurgency in the last three years.
“The APC is in shreds and has lost the enormous goodwill that brought it to power in 2015 after failing in all its promises to Nigerians”.