The Punch reports that the All Progressives Congress in Akwa Ibom State has accused the Senate Minority Leader, Godswill Akpabio, of plotting to stop President Muhammadu Buhari’s war against corruption. The party faulted Akpabio’s statement that the current war against corruption lacked transparency and fairness to all, and that Buhari appears to be fighting his political adversaries.
Speaking in Uyo on Thursday, the state Publicity Secretary of the APC, Mr. Ita Awak, stated that Akpabio was trying to use the Peoples Democratic Party’s Senate caucus to frustrate the war against corruption. He added that the group would spare no effort in ensuring that the anti-corruption crusade of Buhari failed.
According to him, Akpabio is among the people who had profited from high-level corruption, adding that he would soon be exposed by the battle against graft. He said,
“We, therefore, recall that some very powerful forces and influential personalities in our country sponsored the palace coup that ousted the military regime of the then Major General Muhammadu Buhari and truncated our national renaissance against corruption in 1985.
“It is, therefore, very worrisome to us that the current war that the APC government of President Buhari has begun in 2015 may suffer a grave setback unless the dark agents of corruption who have held sway, especially in the last eight years, are contained and brought to justice.
“With Akpabio’s false allegations that the current war against corruption lacks transparency, fairness to all and appears to be aimed at political adversaries, we are troubled that Akpabio is strategically using his present position as the Minority Leader to galvanise that segment of the powerful elite in our country who are determined to ensure that the Buhari’s war against corruption fails.
Awak, in a petition dated July 8, 2015 titled, “Petition against corruption and the unbecoming conduct of INEC REC, Akwa Ibom State, Mr. Austin Okojie and other INEC officers,” said the party had reasons to invite the Director General of the Department of State Services and the Inspector-General of Police in view of what happened.
According to him, INEC officials should be impartial umpires. He said the electoral body should not degenerate to the level of causing irreparable damage to ballot papers used for the April 11, 2015 governorship election in the state. He said:
“Under Okojie’s watch, hundreds of thousands of ballot papers used for the governorship election of April 11, 2015, were physically mutilated beyond redemption, making it absolutely impossible for the APC forensic experts to scan them for forensic examination.
“In our view, this deliberate and callous destruction of material evidence, in this instance, hundreds of thousands of ballot papers used for the governorship election of April 11, 2015, was criminal in all material particular and so, naturally, warranted the involvement of the DSS and the police.”