
Nigerian Government on Thursday said that Peoples Democratic Party, PDP was distracting President Mohammadu Buhari with unfounded allegations of selectivity in the war against corruption, warning it to stop forthwith.
It also described as malicious and unfounded the allegation by that funds from the Excess Crude Account were being withdrawn by the Buhari administration to pay back some governors of the All Progressives Congress, APC that contributed to President Buhari’s presidential campaign.
The warning came against the backdrop of the allegations by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Olisa Metuh that President Buhari was shielding APC government officials from facing prosecution and compensating them for bankrolling his election campaign.
Speaking through the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, the presidency assured that allegations were frivolous, saying that President was not known for that.
In a statement, Shehu explained that “since President Buhari came into office, he has never told the EFCC not to touch any APC Governor because they belong to the same party.”
The presidential spokesman regretted that while “it was convenient for the PDP to remember the cases of Sule Lamido, it pretended not to notice the fact that former Governor Murtala Nyako of Adamawa State, who is an APC member, was also arrested and arraigned at the same time.”
He challenged Metuh to produce evidence where President Buhari interfered in the activities of the EFCC by giving instructions on who to prosecute or shield from prosecution or apologize to Nigerians for willfully propagating falsehoods to gain cheap publicity or public sympathy.
The Media aide said it was the responsibility of the former PDP administration to prosecute APC and PDP Governors whose alleged cases of corruption were brought to its attention.
According to him, “if the unseated PDP administration had these facts against APC governors, it was within its powers to prosecute them.”
On the allegation that the Buhari administration was secretly planning to award oil refining licences to its cronies, the Presidency described the accusation as absurd and ridiculous, adding that adherence to transparency and due process would always be President Buhari’s philosophy on doing things.
Advising “PDP to stop crossing its bridges before it came to them in order to intimidate the current administration from going ahead with its resolve to fight corruption at all levels”, Shehu stressed that the “Buhari administration was passionately committed to fighting corruption in all its ramifications, and that no amount of blackmail, distraction and false allegation would deflect his from this course in line with his campaign promises.”