By Joseph Edegbo
Kaduna (Nigeria) — Nigeria’s Minister of Information Lai Mohammed has said it will be a tragedy if the PDP is ever allowed to come back to power.
The Minister who stated this while addressing a news conference in Lagos on Sunday said the present Administration has been working round the clock since assumption of office to take Nigeria out of the “hell hole” where it was dumped by the PDP.
Lai Mohammed dwelt on the progress recorded so far by APC Administration in the fight against corruption, insecurity and revamping of the economy and that Nigerians commonwealth was looted with impunity by the same people who now wanted to come back.
This aspiration, the Minister said, would not just be a tragedy, but a double one, if Nigerians ever allowed these same people to preside over their commonwealth.
According to Lai Mohammed, “Where do we start? Do we want a Diezani back as Petroleum Minister, after the recovery of at least 43 million dollars and 56 houses from this one person?
“Do we want the 2.9 billion dollars – that’s about one-eighth of the 2018 Budget – that has been successfully traced and recovered from looters by the EFCC since the inauguration of the present administration, to be re-looted? What about the 151 million dollars and N8 billion in looted funds that have been recovered from just three sources as a direct result of the introduction of the whistle-blower policy? Do we want them to be re-looted?
“What about the persistent under-remittance of operating surpluses by State Owned Entities? Under the PDP, JAMB only remitted an aggregate of 51 million Naira. In September 2017, the same JAMB announced it is ready to remit 7.8 billion Naira back to the Government. Do we want JAMB to go back to remitting 51 million Naira?”, he asked.
The minister said with the elimination of thousands of ghost workers, the Administration has saved 120 billion Naira among others.
Nigerians, he added. must also never forget the alleged diversion of 2.1 billion dollars earmarked for arms purchase by officials of the immediate-past administration.
On the recently allegation that the government was planning to arrest 50 of PDP members for alleged corruption, the Minister said the guilty are afraid, saying that let those who have plundered the treasury face the music, if they must.
Lai Mohammed, who spoke of the commitment of APC administration to succeed, said is a mark of the contempt in which the PDP holds Nigerians that the party is even talking of returning to power, even when the rot it left behind is yet to be totally cleared.
“Never again must Nigeria be bedeviled by a rapacious, impunity-prone and plunderous party, like the PDP,” he declared.
