Tuesday, 19th March 2024
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Re: Editor of The Guardian and defence of looting

Sir: As a regular reader of The Sunday Guardian, its news reports and features, my attention was drawn to the above subject matter under an article titled “Right of Reply,” by Laolu Akande, special adviser to the Vice President on Media and Publicity.     I do not write in defence of the editor of…

Looting

Sir: As a regular reader of The Sunday Guardian, its news reports and features, my attention was drawn to the above subject matter under an article titled “Right of Reply,” by Laolu Akande, special adviser to the Vice President on Media and Publicity.
   
I do not write in defence of the editor of The Guardian nor in defence of looters, but as a concerned senior citizen who is desirous of seeing genuine progress and development in my lifetime in my beloved country Nigeria whose enormous potential has remained potential 58 years after political independence.

I am a non-partisan citizen who carries no membership card of any of the myriads of registered political parties in Nigeria; but exercises my civic rights/responsibility by voting for individuals from whatever political party, tribe, region, or religion, with proven track records of integrity, patriotism, intellectual capacity, fair-mindedness, principle etc.

It is on these bases I stand to interrogate the narrative of the special adviser to the VP on the above subject matter.

   
Is it not true that the VP as typical of his party the APC keeps bandying figures and brandishing names of alleged looters in the media which amounts to a trial of the accused in the court of public opinion that lacks the power to convict or punish?

As a leading legal intellectual light in the country who has had the privilege of holding high political offices in the executive arm of government, how many executive bills has he initiated to strengthen the anti-corruption fight, with a view to securing easier and quicker conviction of corrupt individuals in our judicial systems?
   
APC came to power on the crest wave of propaganda and mass deceit and hopes to hold onto the reins of power that way without plans for tangible achievements to win the hearts of the electorate.

The continued blame of their predecessor, the PDP, after almost three years in the saddle now sounds like a broken record to the objective onlookers.
     
A critical analysis of the figures quoted in Akande’s narrative in The Sunday Guardian of April 1 clearly reveals that they were bandied for propaganda and deceitful intent.

For example, the capital release of N99 billion for Works, Power and Housing in 2014 when the average exchange rate was one dollar to N180 amounts to nearly N200 billion by the 2017 exchange rate of one dollar to N360 .

Worse still, the capital expenditure for 2017 was drawn from external borrowing that mortgages the economic fortunes of future generations to make cheap political points today.

For a regime who in three years has borrowed more money than its predecessors in 16 years, the deceitful and propaganda purposes of the VP and the APC become more real than apparent.
   
It is our humble appeal to APC especially the Federal Government to roll up its sleeves and get down to work for which it was elected in preference to the PDP as propaganda and continued political campaigns will serve no useful purpose to Nigeria in a hurry to catch up with the rest of the developing world.  

Augustine Eigbe, Abuja.

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