PDP accuses APC, EFCC of waging anti-graft war with propaganda

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday condemned what it called use of media propaganda by the All Progressives Congress (APC) as a tool for fighting corruption.

It said the publicity given to the corruption allegations against former minister of Petroleum, Mrs. Diezani Madueke, was intended to portray the PDP as party of the corrupt.

Briefing journalists on preparations for the its non-elective convention holding today in Abuja, the party’s spokesman, Dayo Adeyeye, also accused the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) of helping the APC to fight its opponents, saying it was wrong for the anti-graft agency to see itself as investigator, prosecutor and Judge.

“The only thing you need to do today is to crossover to the APC and all your sins would be forgiven. All APC members are saints and others are sinners,” he declared.

On the re-emergence of the Boko Haram insurgency, Adeyeye said prior to the 2015 general elections, the PDP government under President Goodluck Jonathan “held elections in every local government area in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states, the base of the terrorist sect, a development he said showed that the PDP government had routed the terrorist group before that election.

Some 3,000 delegates from across the country are expected in today’s convention.

Adeyeye said the delegates from the six geo-political zones were already in town for the big event.

Describing the convention as a unity gathering of the PDP family, he said the international community was already in Abuja to monitor the exercise.

“It will be a carnival-like convention, the like of which we have never seen before. We have delegates from the Africa Union (AU), the United Nations (UN) and the rest of the international community,” he added.

Meanwhile, the party is under intense pressure to suspend some of its members believed to be sabotaging its peace efforts, even as it holds its non-elective convention, which narrowly survived being stopped by court, which main agenda is the task of extending the tenure of the caretaker committee for at least 90 days.

Chairman of the Committee, Senator Ahmed Makarfi, disclosed at the PDP’s 75th National Executive Committee (NEC) that there were four different attempts by persons whose names he did not mention to use the courts to halt the convention.

Makarfi said the NEC meeting had to be delayed till last night to allow the caretaker committee monitor situation in the courts across the country and be convinced that no court order had been made against today’s convention.

Sources within the party traced the attempts to stop the convention to the Southwest, where rival members continue to raise issues against one another.

The crisis rocking the Southwest caucus of the party had continued after the Supreme Court judgment, a development considered by members as a deliberate attempt to sabotage ongoing peace efforts in the party.

There have been calls on the national leadership of the party to expel some members believed to be causing more trouble.

The NEC meeting was still ongoing as at press time.