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N33BN FRAUD: PDP demands prosecution of ex-NEMA DG, asks Osinbajo to ‘come clean’

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Kola-Ologbondiyan

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has asked for the immediate prosecution of the sacked Director General (DG) of National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Engr. Mustapha Yunusa Maihaja.

The party said the President Muhammadu Buhari presidency should prosecute Maihaja over his indictment by the House of Representatives for alleged embezzlement of N33 billion in the agency.

It also called on Vice President Yemi Osinbajo to come clean on the N5.8 billion NEMA scandal for which he was reportedly fingered by an investigative committee of the House of Representatives.

“The PDP stands with Nigerians in rejecting this unpardonable pat in the wrist of allowing Engr. Maihaja to leave office without investigation and prosecution to recover the allegedly embezzled fund”, the party said in a statement on Monday by its spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan.

“Our party believes that the failure to prosecute the indicted former NEMA Director General as a ploy to shield very top officials in the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led administration, who are alleged to be involved in the series of scam in NEMA, while the masses, for whom the fund was meant to serve, continue to suffer neglect and untold hardships,” the party said.

The PDP insisted that the sacking of Engr. Maihaja should not be used as an excuse to foreclose an investigation into the huge fraud in NEMA under Vice President Osinbajo as Chairman of Governing Board.

It described the alleged sleaze in NEMA as an indelible smear on the Buhari presidency and charged the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to immediately take in Engr. Maihaja for questioning and if found wanting, prosecution.

“The party notes that the Vice President had failed to provide cogent response to the report of the House of Representatives on the N33 billion NEMA fraud in addition to allegations that the N5.8 billion was withdrawn from the national coffers, while he was acting President, without legislative consent and expended without recourse to extant due process, procurement and contract rules.

“The PDP recalled that the House of Representatives had exposed that while the fund was claimed to have been expended for procurement of grains under the emergency intervention on food security in the North East, none of the six states of the Northeast received any grain from the so called emergency intervention by NEMA.

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“The legislative house had also exposed that there was no evidence that the World Food Programme (WFP) received the 5000 metric tons of rice, which NEMA claimed to have bought and donated to WFP for distribution to victims of insurgency in the region.

“Indeed, the failure of the Buhari Presidency to prosecute Engr. Maihaja, despite his indictment by the House of Representatives, had raised serious issues of alleged complicity in high places, for which Nigerians expect Prof. Osinbajo, as Chairman of Governing Board of the agency, to come clean,” the opposition party said.

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