It’s amazing that the erstwhile ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), now opposition, which brought the nation to its present sordid situation through brazen treasury looting, is the crying blue murder of its thieving members. Many of them have returned the loot while others have pledged to do so. So, what are the party and its leadership saying? They should consider themselves lucky for not being in China, North Korea, India or Saudi Arabia.
All of them would have been sent to the gallows by now. The socio-economic and political crises facing the nation were caused by the thieving party and its members who became billionaires over night. Some PDP members even have the guts to ask the Buhari administration to quit over its inability to fix the economy within the last one year of its debut knowing full they are the cankerworms.
Where could they have perpetrated that if not in Nigeria? The treatment of Jerry Rawlings of Ghana in 1979 is the appropriate measure for all of them without any exception. That is what they deserve for creating the present economic woes.
Some of them are begging for plea bargain and making refunds in billions. Where did they get the money from other than the nation’s coffers? Many of the PDP members who were governors, ministers, aides and legislators had poor parental backgrounds but became stupendously rich after looting the nation dry. They will certainly pay for their crime against Nigerians.
The jokers even mooted to impeach President Muhammadu Buhari, which would have incurred the wrath of Nigerians.
It is expedient that treasury looters, who are on the run, should be extradited, prosecuted and jailed. A special court should be created to accelerate the cases pending in the conventional courts in order to dispense with the matters as quickly as possible. PDP members, who normally ought to relinquish their membership of the party and bury their heads in shame, are sadly the ones parading themselves as leaders. If by any stretch they find their way to the power again, then Nigeria will be personalized, appropriated and become a failed state.
These are people that should face firing squad, but are instead calling the shots again. The PDP and its leaders should feel ashamed. Those of them who benefitted immensely from the nation are the ones agitating for the balkanization of Nigeria. What an irony!
When PMB refused to sign the 2016 Appropriation Bill into law, it was the PDP members who went to town, calling him all sorts of names; “Baba Go Slow, and inexperienced leader”. Now, the looting experience of PDP has been exposed as they had perpetrated budget padding for good 16years while in power. Only God knows how much PDP had stolen from the nation’s coffers through budget padding and nothing on ground to justify their leadership despite transformation and the constituency projects claimed to have been executed.
Now people like Malam Adamu Ciroma, an elder statesman, has said President Buhari is not good in governance. But this man failed to strengthen the economy when he was governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and also failed woefully to get reprieve for the nation when Nigeria was neck-deep in external debts when he, Ciroma, was minister of finance under the PDP. As a matter of fact, it was under Ciroma as the minister of finance that his party had started padding the budget to fleece the nation. Ask Adamu Ciroma how well he governed and restructured when he was the CBN governor and finance minister.
His party was good at stealing; padding budget, land grabbing, political thuggery, ballot box snatching and the imposition of candidates – he closed his eyes to all these anomalies. Ciroma is not ashamed to have failed to speak against his looting party while the irresponsible party lasted in power. He now finds it convenient to criticize a year-old party because Buhari is not stealing like they have looted the nation blind.
The elder statesman will not be spared because he has refused to allow the sleeping dog to lie. If old age did not prevent him from talking against another party that sent their thieving party packing in a free, fair and credible election, others will not spare him.
When his party was looting the national treasury where was Adamu Ciroma? Was that not the period he made his Personal Assistant,Alhaji Adamu Maina Waziri, the Director General of National Programme for the Eradication of Poverty, NAPEP, Executive Secretary, Petroleum Trust Fund, PTDF and Minister of Police Affairs?
When Ciroma’s health denied him appearance at the political centre stage, nobody else was qualified from his home State of Yobe except PA and his wife, Ina Ciroma, who became national woman leader of PDP, minister of women affairs and the managing director of National Inland Waterways, Lokoja. Who is fooling who? Now that they have lost out, it is normal for elders to cry out that President Buhari is not good at governance as he blocks people like Adamu Ciroma to slush funds. Funny!
Adelere wrote from Airport Road, Abuja
