Political games with bank PHB?

Sir: I wouldn’t want to think that the governments are at it again, but with the new allegations raised about former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, we are left with no other choice than to have these thoughts running through our minds every day.

Recently, Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), was alleged for having a role to play in the collapse of the former Platinum Habib Bank (PHB). Could this be another dirty game governments are trying to play? Bank PHB was a commercial bank and was the fifth largest financial service providers in Nigeria. This bank was founded in 2005 and it was defunct in the year 2011. I am not a supporter of either parties, but this recent issue made me interested in their next move and now I am beginning to wonder what exactly the governments are up to by using his involvement in a misappropriation of public fund worth over N156 million as a threat to his political career.

This bank had been dead for over seven years now and also the man in question had been in Nigeria for at least those numbers of years. My question now is, why didn’t they realise he was involved in a fraud act all these years? Why did they have to wait till he travelled to the United States before they could come up to us to say he had been involved in a corrupt act that happened years back, even with evidences as they claim. I am not trying to judge anyone here, but rather just trying to make a point to them. We the citizens are tired of hearing their cock and bull stories all the time and we are no longer going to fall for their dirty political pranks played on us. Because today All Progressives Congress (APC) will come up with stories about the PDP and tomorrow the same PDP will do the same to the opposition party, which is all as a result of rivalry between the parties.

If the ruling governments were as “incorruptible” as they claim to be, then they should have found out long ago about his fraudulent act and dealt with it seriously at that time and not now. The measure they are trying to use in bringing him down is a very wrong one, as they are giving room for citizens to doubt their sincerity on the issue on ground. I am beginning to wonder if truly they are no more confident in themselves on the upcoming general election and so they see Atiku Abubakar as a real threat to their elections victory, which is why they are trying to pull a stunt on him.Otherwise what other reason can they use to justify their actions if they had every evidence about his involvement in the collapse of the bank and yet they did nothing about it until he was out of the country?…Deep in political thoughts!

Hassan Zainab, a graduate of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), wrote from Zaria.