The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, says it strongly supports President Muhammadu Buhari on his war on corruption. However, the party warned that due process must be followed in fighting the menace in the country.
This was made known in a statement issued on Tuesday by the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh, in Abuja.
Metuh advised the Buhari-led administration not to use his anti-corruption campaign as a “guise to victimize innocent citizens and curtail the freedom of Nigerians.
“Democracy has come to stay in Nigeria and no citizen, irrespective of political, religious or ethnic affiliation should be denied access to due process and the rule of law in the process,”
Furthermore, the party said that, “In the same vein, we want to state categorically that the anti-corruption war, whilst targeted at the immediate past administration should not by any means be blind to the impunity of the present leaders of the country either in terms of borrowing and spending without recourse to the statutory arms and organs of government and dictates of transparency and accountability, or in terms of nepotism in appointments in key institutions such as INEC and the DSS.
“The anti-corruption effort must not be blind to the corrupting of the security system resulting in the intrusion by over-zealous operatives on issues bordering purely on politics; the hounding, arrest and detention of Resident Electoral Officers and members of election tribunals in Rivers, Akwa-Ibom and other PDP states.”
“We make bold to state that he who comes to equity must come with clean hands. In that regard therefore, we advise members of the APC blowing the horn ahead of the cart to keep quiet because many of them have been major beneficiaries of corruption and sleazes associated with themselves and their allies, especially one of them who as a disguised errand boy of a well-known APC leader is a major beneficiary of the largesse of perpetrators of corruption.
“Apart from Mr President, who for now, is not associated with any sleaze or corrupt activity in this democracy, most APC leaders are still those who as governors, ministers and labour leaders have been the worst corrupt set of Nigerians ever to bestride the political landscape of the country.
“It is a great miscarriage of perception therefore for APC leaders who are perpetrators of sleazes and corrupt acts to attempt to deceive Nigerians with imaginary holiness in this anti-corruption war by the President,” the statement said.
“Consequently, we counsel Mr President, as the leader of the APC to remove the log in the eyes of his party while we support his commitment to remove the speck from the eyes of others,” Metuh concluded.
