$1BN SECURITY FUND: PDP lobbies National Assembly to call Buhari to order

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has described President Muhammadu Buhari’s approval of $1 billion for the purchase of equipment to fight insurgency as a renewed attempt to loot the money from the national coffers.

The party alleged that Buhari wants to use the money to pursue his interests in the All Progressives Congress (APC’s) national convention and 2019 campaign and therefore called on Nigerians to reject and resist it.

According to the opposition party, the National Assembly should immediately commence appropriate constitutional legislative actions against President Buhari for gross misconduct in unilaterally approving the release of the fund without allowing for the application of legislative instrument.

The PDP in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, on Thursday, said its investigation revealed that the Presidency willfully sidestepped the National Assembly so as to avoid legislative scrutiny and accountability and pave way for the diverting of the fund for selfish partisan purposes.

“It is a notorious fact that the Presidency and the APC have been plotting to loot this $I billion from our heavily depleted Excess Crude Account (ECA) since last year, using the guise of fight against insurgency.

“This is the same Buhari administration that has been boasting of having technically defeated the insurgents. This is also an administration that is not known to have exhausted subsisting budgetary allocations for defense.

“Nigerians are thoroughly disappointed that President Buhari; the same African Union (AU) ‘anti-corruption champion’, who swore to be above board and to protect the constitution and our laws, will allow himself to fall for the temptation of resorting to ways and means which are totally at variance with the laws and all democratic tenets.

“Democracy thrives on constitutional processes of separation of powers, due diligence and transparency and not on totalitarian tendencies.

“PDP believes the President, as a leader, reasonably ought to have known that he is in no way above the law. We therefore urge the National Assembly to look into the constitution and impose appropriate legislative instruments against Mr. President, if any part of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) has been breached by this unilateral decision.

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“We further urge the National Assembly to scrutinize the constitution and other statute books for the purposes of strengthening the laws guiding the application of funds in our country, particularly under this inherently corrupt and incompetent administration.

“Moreover, since it has come to light that the Buhari administration is using the fight against insurgency as a conduit to siphon funds, as evinced in the alleged looting of the N18 billion Internally Displaced Persons (IDP)’s funds, we demand for an independent investigation into the processes of release and utilization of all special funds for war against insurgency in the last three years,” the statement read.

President Buhari had on Wednesday at a meeting with the service chiefs at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, approved the released of the $1 billion for the purchase of equipment to fight Boko Haram terrorists, which his administration had constantly claimed had been defeated.

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