Lagos PDP faults Buhari’s anti-corruption war

Nwankwo warns judiciary against hasty decisions on graft cases
Lagos State Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has reiterated that President Muhammadu Buhari should look inwards to his cabinet in the ongoing fight against corruption.

In a statement yesterday, spokesman of the party, Taofik Gani, alleged that some members of the Buhari-led cabinet have questions to answer on corruption and that the President needs to create time to respond to some burning questions whether he is not harbouring corrupt persons as ministers on a live programme.The party, however, posited that one of his serving ministers was recently accused of corruption in the oil sector.

According to the PDP: “The party and indeed other observers of this administration can never be threatened or silenced by such utterances of the President. We hereby urge him to rather allow ministers found wanting to defend themselves.”

The party also said: “It is expedient of Mr. President to begin to make the fight against graft holistic instead of the selective approach he is currently using.”
Besides, an elder statesman and Chancellor of the Eastern Mandate Union (EMU), Dr. Arthur Agwuncha Nwankwo, yesterday deplored the ongoing fight against corruption by President Buhari-led administration, saying it was not only defective, but sealed the fate of those now being tried.

He also called on the Judiciary to resist any attempt to stampede it into hasty decisions, stressing that in trying persons charged of corruption, due process must be the watchword.

In a statement in Enugu, Nwankwo however said: “The Judiciary must not collude in this impunity. It must stand to be counted. We all have a duty to protect and guide our liberty and freedom. The law accepts the fact that a suspect is innocent of any crime until proven otherwise”.

Referring to a recent meeting of President Buhari with top members of the Nigerian judiciary in Abuja as not only suggestive “but also laden with ominous foreboding of the incarceration of democratic dictatorship in Nigeria”, Nwankwo further said it was another sort of siege on the Judiciary.

The former presidential candidate of the Peoples Mandate Party (PMP) said that his interpretation of the meeting was that the President Buhari literally “blackmailed the judiciary as the major log in the wheel of his government’s war against corruption when he accused the Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs) of abusing court process by taking advantage of several loopholes in the judiciary.”

According to him: “This is the beginning of evil in Nigeria. I am confident that Nigeria’s judiciary would not succumb to such cheap blackmail. The judiciary, I must admit, has demonstrated immense commitment to assert independence. In most judicial pronouncements and decisions, the Judiciary has held its head high, regrettably, while the top brass of the Judiciary, especially the Bench and Bar, are committed to giving the Judiciary a new relevance and importance, there are still many who bring disrepute to the Judiciary. I am worried with some conflicting and contradicting judgments on the same matter in recent times.”