By Nnamdi Ojiego
…Says With successful convention, we have crossed last hurdle on path to merger
The Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, has described the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and the government it controls at the centre as a cesspool of corruption and asked them to cover their faces in shame.
ACN was reacting reacting to a media report which said that US Congress has confirmed mass corruption at all levels of the Nigerian government.
In a statement issued in Lagos on Sunday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said ”What Nigerians have always believed has been confirmed from other lands. According to media reports today (Sunday April 21st), a new report submitted to the US Congress by Secretary of State John Kerry has confirmed mass corruption at all levels of the Nigerian government.
”Coming at a time that the PDP and Federal Government have been engaging in chest-beating over the fight against corruption, this is a body blow to this unserious and directionless party and the government it controls at the centre.
”They hinge their claim of fighting corruption on the establishment of the EFCC and the ICPC. What they have not told Nigerians is that these two bodies have been stifled by the same PDP and the Federal Government, to such an extent that no other party or government in the history of our nation has been more immersed in corruption.
”The unprecedented and monumental fuel subsidy fraud happened under the PDP and its central government. The mind-boggling pension fraud; the 6-million-dollar Wilbros Scandal and the recurring electoral fraud that is the mother of all corruption, just to mention a few, all happened under this government.
”We are therefore not surprised at the scathing portrayal of Nigeria by the US report, which we will revisit in the days ahead. For now, let the PDP and the Federal Government cover their faces in shame!” it said.
Meanwhile, ACN has said with the huge success of its National Convention in Lagos last Thursday, the party has crossed the Rubicon in its quest to merge with other leading opposition parties in the country.
According to the the statement, the party said it achieved its targets at the convention – which were to pass a resolution approving the merger with the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), and the conclusion of a pending disciplinary issue with the expulsion from the party of the erring one time Chairman of the party in Kaduna State, Barrister Mohammed Musa Soba.
”Thanks to that convention, our party, the ACN, has irrevocably committed to consummating the merger with other key opposition parties to provide an alternative platform for Nigerians, who are tired of the perpetual misrule of the Peoples Democratic Party.
”The conventions of the CPC and the ANPP slated for next month will clear the last hurdle along the merger path, and signal the dawn of a new day for long-suffering Nigerians, who are eagerly awaiting the merger.
”It will also sound the death knell for the evil forces that have held our country by the jugular in the past 13 years of its return to democratic rule,” it said.
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