PDP challenges Osinbajo to name looters within party

The Peoples Democratic Party, Kola Ologbodiyan, has accused Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo of not being bold enough to mention names of those he claimed stole public funds.

Mr. Ologbondiyan said the vice president was only fond of bandying figures he cannot trace to a personality in the PDP.

His reaction followed Mr. Osinbajo’s speech at the colloquium organised to mark the 66th birthday of a leader of the All Progressives’Congress (APC) in Lagos on Thursday.

Citing differences in cash releases to three ministries as example, Mr. Osinbajo said the looting that took place in the last five years of PDP administration cost the nation dear hence, he would continue to talk about corruption in PDP’s administration.

“The corruption of the previous five years destroyed the economy,” he said.

While featuring on a programme on Channels Television, Thursday evening, Mr. Ologbondiyan cautioned the vice president to either “keep quiet” or present a list of PDP members who amassed wealth through illegal means.

“We want to caution the Vice-President that he should stop bandying figures. Anytime the Vice-President has the opportunity to face the camera, he begins to announce figures that he cannot support,” he said.

“Our advice to him is that as a professor of law, he knows the pathway to follow when you accuse somebody of corruption. We challenge him to stop bandying figures but he should mention names of those who he claimed corrupted themselves. And if he cannot mention their names and he cannot charge them to court and he cannot cause their arrest and he cannot even list these people, he should keep quiet.”

“Why can’t they come out and say in the last three years, we have done these, we have done that? All they do is to come back and say the last 10 years of the PDP, last five years of PDP. Is that what Nigerians are asking?

“As far as we are concerned in PDP, until the Vice-President comes out clean and says that your party members by so names corrupted themselves to the tune of so amount, you don’t expect us as a party to begin to respond.”

Mr. Ologbondiyan said the APC government has not been able to convict any PDP member as the party is only engaging in ‘media trial.’

He said the APC’s ascent to power was financed with stolen public funds.

“Don’t forget, the PDP established all the anti-corruption agencies in the cpuntry. Name it; EFCC, ICPC and whatever agency you think about. They were established by the PDP. PDP remains the only party in our modern democracy that have tried its members for corruption charges.

“Our people challenged the government of which Prof. Osinbajo is Vice-President that the corrupt money they are looking for is what they spent to bring them into government that is the position of PDP.

“If they are searching for corruption money, if they are searching for people who stole money, they should look inwards, that the position of PDP.

“If they are current members of the rebranded and repositioned PDP, declare them so, but if they are hiding under villa protection and you are busy going around villages and towns announcing that PDP stole money, you are being unfair and you are not acting like a man of God. That is the position of PDP,” he said.