The Peoples Democratic Party has charged President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately recover over N28 billion meant for the rehabilitation of Internally Displaced Persons in the North East but allegedly stolen by members of the Presidency cabal and certain interests in the All Progressives Congress.
\nThe party said the presidency and the APC are not being sincere with the IDPs by providing cover for those who have been frittering away billions of naira donated for the well-being of victims of insurgency.
\nThe PDP, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, yesterday said the President cannot in all honesty claim not to be aware of reported sharp practices involving billions of naira in the management of funds in the Presidential Initiative on the North East, since the issues came into the public domain.
\nThe statement said: Indeed, the Presidency cannot, in any way imaginable, claim not to be aware of reports that sometime in August 2017, a cabinet minister and a high ranking Presidency official were alleged to have diverted N18 billion from the N48 billion approved by the National Assembly for the rehabilitation of millions of IDPs and rebuilding of six northeast states ravaged by insurgency in the 2017 budget.
\n\u201cThe APC and the Buhari Presidency cannot claim to be unaware of the damning report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), a public document which detailed how officials were using bulk of the resources meant for the IDPs on contracts that were found to have immensely benefitted officials of the APC Government including the sacked Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal.
\n\u201cThe Buhari Presidency and the APC cannot also claim to be unaware of the motion by Senator Baba Kaka Garba from Borno Central, who exposed how persons known to have connections with the APC, fraudulently cornered N1.2 billion from the Federal Government under the guise of supplying items to IDPs.
\n\u201cDespite the open allegations, the Presidency has not taken any firm step towards an open investigation into the alleged involvement of a cabinet minister and top Presidency in the stealing of N18 billion IDP fund, not to talk about recovering the stolen funds.\u201d
\nThe PDP recalled that it took immense pressure from Nigerians before President Buhari could even sack his indicted former SGF, who, hitherto, was enjoying the cover of the Presidency.
\nIt added: \u201cAll the IDP\u2019s had got from the APC and Buhari-led Presidency are excuses, false assurances, cosmetic condolence messages and crocodile tears, while the cronies and cabal who are frittering away their funds enjoy the protection of the government.
\n\u201cPerhaps, this explains why Mr. President\u2019s handlers, in all his visits to troubled states, has ensured that he had no direct interaction with the IDPs probably to avoid being directly taken to task on the stolen fund.
\n\u201cIt is clear to Nigerians that the APC government swims in corruption and concealment of sleazes, but stealing from the IDPs is what they least expected. That, for majority of Nigerians, is the worst form of man\u2019s inhumanity to man.
\n\u201cThe PDP therefore stands in solidarity with those deprived victims and we demand an end to this concealment of fraud and cosmetic concern for the victims.
\n\u201cThe PDP also challenges Buhari Presidency to live true to its 2015 elections probity campaign by making the report of its administrative investigations on sleaze involving the Cabal and other APC interests public.
\n\u201cThe PDP also urges all Nigerians and the international community to join hands and ensure that the funds are recovered from APC interests and immediately released to the IDPs.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Peoples Democratic Party has charged President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately recover over N28 billion meant for the rehabilitation of Internally Displaced Persons in the North East but allegedly stolen by members of the Presidency cabal and certain interests in the All Progressives Congress. The party said the presidency and the APC are not being […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":172050,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-172046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-front-pix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=172046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/172050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=172046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=172046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=172046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}