National
Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief John
Odigie-Oyegun, says the party is sad that a member of the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) is the Deputy Senate President.
Reacting
to a comment by Senator Dino Melaye that the APC should be grateful that
it didn’t lose the National Assembly leadership to the PDP instead of
persecuting Saraki, Oyegun told Punch that “the thing that rankled us
most was the election of Ekweremadu as Deputy Senate President.”
“Saraki
is a member of the APC, much as the main line of the party would have
wished a different result and a different scenario but we all find it
very, very difficult to accept the emergence of a PDP person as his
deputy”, he declared.
On investigation of PDP over its campaign
funds, while there are no prosecution of APC members over its own
campaign funds, Oyegun replied: “We are not investigating PDP campaign
funds. We are investigating records as to how public funds were hijacked
for illegal purposes which were not budgeted for by the National
Assembly.
“Nobody in business who contributed a lot of money has
been dragged to any tribunal because he gave PDP funds. Public funds,
public resources, money that belongs to you, me and the people of this
country were stolen and diverted.
“Crude oil was being illegally
sold to fund the campaigns and other political activities. Not just the
campaigns, people just shared money and pocketed.
“Anybody
who steals from the treasury either to fund campaign, or to put in his
pocket or to buy an estate in every part of the world would be asked
questions. It must not be allowed.
“Nobody must be allowed to get
away with that. It is not the same with campaign funding. We are not
investigating PDP campaign funds.”
Insisting that the APC did not
make too many promises, Oyegun stated that “The President promised
security; he promised the people jobs.
“He promised the people revitalisation of the economy and strongly promised the people the taming of corruption.
“A
lot of things are under this and up till today, we still stand by this
and we stand behind because these are the things he promised and he is
determined to do them for the people.
“The results are already
showing all over the place. The President did not make too many
promises. A lot of other things people are saying are neither here nor
there; people are saying things he never said.
“Things like: he
will make the Naira equivalent to the Dollar; he never said things like
that but people just manufacture and read what they want to read into
these issues.”
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