By Dipo Olowookere
President Muhammadu Buhari has been asked to immediately sack, arrest and arraign Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun for alleged criminal forgery of her NYSC certificate.
This request was made by the country’s major opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), following a report yesterday that the Minister forged an NYSC exemption certificate.
In a statement signed by its spokesman, Mr Kola Ologbondiyan, the party said Mr Buhari should not provide a cover for Mrs Adeosun.
The party said the revelation vindicates its stand that the Buhari Presidency is a haven of fraudsters, common thieves and persons of questionable character, adding that the recent revelation has cast a full-length dark shadow on the overall integrity of his administration.
“The world can now see how the Buhari Presidency has been concealing sharp practices under it. We can now see why there is humongous corruption under President Buhari’s watch and why Mr President has refused to take any concrete steps to check the sleazes in his administrations.
“Perhaps such ‘artful dodgers’ were deliberately hired and placed in revenue related agencies to perfect the pilfering of our common patrimony for interests in the Buhari Presidency,” the statement said.
The PDP challenged President Buhari to prove himself a man of integrity by allowing an open system-wide and independent inquest into all alleged corrupt practices in his presidency.
“We challenge President Buhari to be bold to allow an open independent inquest into the exact figures amounting to the trillions of naira oil revenue earned by the nation in the last three years and how he had spent same with Mrs Adeosun as minister of finance.
“Mr President should also allow an open inquest into his handling, with Mrs Adeosun, of all our depleted foreign financial instruments, including the Excess Crude Account (ECA), from which funds were taken without recourse to the National Assembly.
“President Buhari should also allow an inquest into his administration’s borrowing of over N10 trillion in 30 months, with Mrs Adeosun as minister of finance and the purposes for which the money was used.
“Furthermore, we challenge President Buhari to allow an inquest into the leaked memo at the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) showing N9 trillion corrupt oil contracts as well as the alleged stealing of N1.1 trillion worth of crude oil, all in a sector under his direct purview as minister of Petroleum.
“We also demand for an open investigation into the N18 billion Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) intervention fund and the N10 billion National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) alleged to have been stolen from the Treasury Single Account (TSA) by APC officials and Presidency cabal.
“Finally, the PDP urges Nigerians to note the colossal corruption under President Buhari’s watch and hold him directly responsible for all the calamities that have befallen our nation in the last three years,” Mr Ologbondiyan said in the statement.
