By Myke Uzendu
The Director General of Voice of Nigeria (VON), Osita Okechukwu, has disclosed that the major opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) cannot again be trusted to rescue the country given the fact that its 16 years stint at power was full of corruption, mal-administration and woes.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain made the disclosure on Sunday in Abuja in response to the just concluded retreat organized by the PDP for its national and elected officers with the team “Rescue and Rebuild Nigeria”.
He said, “How can Nigerians trust our sister political party, the PDP, given their antecedents riddled with trust deficit? We know that times are hard; methinks it is better to allow APC to fix Nigeria. Where do one start from?”.
The DG went memory lane to recall all the mal-administration in the PDP administration, including the siphoning of public funds as well as party’s funds by its national officers.
Okechukwu called on the opposition party to fix the dust raised by party members by accounting for the millions raised and left in its fixed deposit and current accounts before suggesting that it can fix the country.
He equally recalled how Kassim Afegbua alerted the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) of the mismanagement of party funds by PDP national officers.
He claimed that PDP squandered all the earning left in the nations coffers as well as funds earmarked for Greenfield oil projects.
He said, “Can we forget the squander mania of $23 billion Greenfield Refineries – one meant for Lagos, one for Kogi and one for Bayelsa? A golden opportunity cost to our economy.
“Recall that on March 19, 2015, Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) queried Dr Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, then Minister of Finance thus,
“May we under the Freedom of Information Act 2011, request for the full disclosure of transactions concerning the three Greenfield refineries and petrochemical plant contract awarded on 13th May 2010 by President Goodluck Jonathan to Chinese State Construction and Engineering Corporation Limited (CSCEC), at $23 billion meant to be located at Bayelsa, Kogi and Lagos States.
“Secondly, why are they dead on arrival as six years down the line, neither the three Greenfield refineries nor petrochemical plant is under construction. The three Greenfield refineries one understands, on completion were to add 750,000 barrels per day capacity to Nigeria’s refining infrastructure and create over a million jobs.
“The Greenfield Refineries fiasco happened when our Excess Crude Account had over $40 billion and the China State Construction Corporation even upped their equity to 80 per cent. The unfortunate outcome is that $15 billion is fleeced off our national treasury annually for the importation of refined petroleum products for over a decade.
