Gbajabiamila Covering Up Corruption By Stopping Committee Probes – PDP


…Asks Speaker To Step Down

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has questioned the decision of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, to halt ongoing corruption investigations by the committees of the House.

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The leading opposition party claimed that the move was an attempt by the All Progressives Congress party-dominated legislature to cover up various corruption allegations spiralling in the APC-led government.

The party asked Gbajabiamila to step down from his position for allegedly attempting to shield corrupt officials in government against investigation.

In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, on Saturday, the PDP described the order as “a deliberate design to cover the stench of corruption oozing out of the APC administration.”

Ologbondiyan also said the action was a clear example of corruption fighting back from within the government circle.

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He called on Gbajabiamila to stop circumventing the statutory duties of the House and hindering the fight against corruption by the legislature.

The PDP spokesman said: “The party notes that such incursion into the activities of the committees is to quench the fight against corruption as well as to frustrate whistle blowers just because APC has become an ocean of corruption where the members are swimming.”

He also added: “It is clear that the shutdown directive is targeted at frustrating revelations from ongoing investigations on the $500 million foreign loan from China, particularly as it relates to the mortgaging of our nation’s sovereignty to China.

“This is in addition to the investigations into the humongous corruption in government agencies including the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) the N300 billion unremitted revenue to the federation account as well as allegations of corruption in government earnings and the expenditure in Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDA’s) under the APC.

“It is therefore unfortunate that under the Gbajabiamila-led leadership, the basic responsibility of the House of Representatives, which is its oversight on the executive, has just been maimed through a forced holiday on the members of the respective committees and their Chairmen.”

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According to him, the APC House leadership has breached the parliamentary rules in order to cover leaders in the party and “their cronies who have been fleecing our nation.”

He further said such an action by the House showed that it had lost the essence of its existence, adding that the leadership responsible for such must be held culpable.

Ologbondiyan continued: “For us in the PDP, it is shocking that the APC leadership of the House of Representatives could  by any consideration shut down, its legislative investigation, which is exclusively vested on it under sections 88 and 89 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), on the guise of being on break. Such an action is calamitous to our democracy.”

He praised the members of the Green Chambers under the party’s platform and other minority party lawmakers for “standing against corruption and striving to ensure that the APC does not sell Nigerians into slavery with its reckless foreign borrowings.”

He called on the Gbajabiamila-led APC leadership of the House to immediately reverse itself “as Nigerians expect nothing but seamless investigations without unnecessary interferences and incursions.”

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