6th May, 2013
The Lagos State chapter of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, has described as ridiculous and yet a continuation of malignant stupidity the demand by Lagos Peoples Democratic Party, PDP Chairman, Tunji Shelle, that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, probe the Lagos State government for alleged massive corruption in the administration.
The party says that from all indications, Lagos PDP is brain dead and writhing under the throes of acute frustration and rustiness, which are all too manifest in the feeling that PDP will use the EFCC to achieve a feat it had never achieved or will it ever achieve, which is capturing Lagos .
In a release in Lagos, signed by the Lagos ACN Publicity Secretary, Joe Igbokwe, the party said that when a party notorious for corruption and incompetence makes a life business of forging and marketing lies so as to further its political interests, it can only detain itself to wolf crying and raising the kind of wild hoaxes Lagos PDP has made its primary business since it found out that it has no electoral value in Lagos.
It advises Lagos PDP to wisen up to the fact that it has no base in Lagos and no foundation for dreaming of ever ruling Lagos.
“For us at Lagos ACN, the Lagos State chapter of the PDP has become a regular nuisance with one petty gossip or the other to spread with each passing day. We know that Lagos PDP does not exist beyond this trade in fickleness and we respond to them in that regard. Their wild concoctions and insensate forgeries have become the most remarkable features of their wild fantasy that, by whatever means, they will get a chance of adding Lagos to their looting empire. We assure them that the PDP will continue to meet worse electoral fates in Lagos, with the curse that is the PDP misrule at the center and in the various states unfortunate to have been lorded with their rapacious misrule since 1999.
“Is it not ironical that a party that is notorious for gargantuan corruption running into hundreds of trillions is the one raising one funny corruption allegation or the other against a government noted for compliance with due process and best practice in Nigeria? Is it not queer that it is only a few cabal that remain in Lagos PDP that have chosen voluntary blindness so as not to acknowledge the tremendous development going on in Lagos?
“Is it not paradoxical that at a time the PDP has run Nigeria into one seamless gangland, it is the PDP that is raising noxious allegations of insecurity in the very oasis of safety, which Lagos is to Nigeria at present? Is it not laughable that the members of the very same party, whose members make free meal of the providential wealth of the nation are the ones forging and spreading tendentious lies against a government that stands out for its competence and probity? We are beginning to suspect the involvement of PDP in the recent cases of kidnapping we have witnessed in Lagos for the purpose of achieving their dirty political interests but we want to assure them that the Lagos State government is up to any threat in the face of the profound failure of the PDP-led federal government which controls all security agencies in the country.”
According to ACN, “we are deeply constrained to debate the workability or otherwise of the Lagos State Security Trust Fund with a party that is supervising Nigeria ’s worst security crisis since independence. PDP is a party that votes and loots over one trillion naira each year in the name of security while Nigerians undergo the worst security trauma in its history. LSSTF is a Lagos State security fund, funded by private concerns and not part of the trillion naira slush fund the PDP steals in the name of security.
“The fund is well audited to the satisfaction of the donors and executes its targets with the clinical efficiency that Lagos is noted for, to the full satisfaction of the donors. It is the reason why Lagos is today the most secure and safe state in Nigeria, even with the deliberate lies of Lagos PDP. For the Lagos PDP to fixate itself to that fund with the clear intent of looting it exposes the rabidly corrupt mindset of a party that dreams of ever capturing Lagos; a dream that will never come to fruition.
“What is more, as at the very time, Shelle was ridiculing himself with his demand, the news media was rife with stories of cross country killings through sundry crimes and accidents. This has become a daily harvest of security woes in Nigeria while Shelle and his PDP which control all facets of the Nigerian security, with over one trillion naira security fund, are busy building mountains out of molehills about the security situation in Lagos.”
ACN further said: “we want to state categorically that the Lagos State government runs its affairs in the most transparent manner obtainable in Nigeria . Its projects pass through the most detailed scrutiny and the outcome is so transparent that in the face of failed contracts and sham contracts with which the PDP guzzle Nigeria ’s yearly budget, Lagos has become a reference point to even PDP members and governments elsewhere. We state that it is not true that Lagos has gagged its public officers but merely gave directive that before public officers speak with the media, they clear with the relevant information arms of the government, as is practiced in all parts of the developed world.
“It is understandable though why an unconscionable party of treasury cleansers like the PDP will deliberately distort that fact when its obnoxious noses are trained on adding Lagos to their empire of untrammeled loot. We urge Lagos PDP to come forward with proof of any allegations it raises against the government and not deliberately chorusing stupid and infantile concoctions. We state that it will achieve nothing by occasionally seeking to distract the Lagos State government with such outlandish and specious lies and we want them to note that the EFCC is not its attack dog, at its behest, to further its notorious political interest.
“We refer Shelle and Lagos PDP to read Governor Fashola’s address at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Washington DC on 26 April, 2013, titled ‘The Challenges of Governance and Development in Lagos’ for ideas on how to govern, not only Lagos but the federation and of course the many states whose fates have been sealed by PDP’s reckless, incompetent, corrupt governance since 1999. We urge Lagos PDP to accept the fact that it has no political base in Lagos and will never ever be allowed to wreck Lagos , as it has been day dreaming.”