By Chuks Okocha
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday demanded the immediate sack, investigation and prosecution of the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, as well as the suspended Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Hadiza Bala Usman, over the recent alleged looting of over N165billions in the agency.
The party also asked the transport minister to come clean on his reported connection in the alleged involvement of his wife, Mrs. Edith Amaechi, in the exposed N48 billion contract scam currently rocking the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
The PDP in a statement issued by the National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, said: “The foul stench of corruption oozing out of the NPA, NDDC and other agencies of government in the last six years has shown that our MDAs have become the cash cows and Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) of greedy leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and their cronies in government in their unbridled looting of our patrimony under President Muhammadu Buhari’s watch.
“Our party asserts that the fact that it took the minister six years (2016 to 2021) to query the NPA managing director over the alleged looting of N165 billion unremitted operating surplus of the agency, which is under his purview, is suspect, and raises public belief that he (Amaechi) only acted apparently to shied himself after indicting audit documents had already been exposed.”
The PDP said this is in addition to reports from the office of Auditor-General, which also unearthed the looting of unremitted deduction to Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) amounting to N3,667,750,470, $148,845,745.04, 4,891,449.50 euro, and £252,682.14 under the suspended NPA managing director and Amaechi’s ministerial supervision.
The main opposition party alleged that the audit report also exposed another N15.18 billion allegedly siphoned through shady Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) projects by the NPA, an agency under Amaechi’s ministerial purview.
It therefore rejected the alleged attempt at a cover up in the recourse to an Administrative Panel of Enquiry recommended by the minister to investigate the NPA fraud, “in which he also has some questions to answer.”
The statement said: “Our party insists that both the minister and the indicted NPA managing director should be handed over to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for investigation and possible prosecution.”
Moreover, the party said Nigerians are appalled that fingers of fraud allegation are also pointing towards the wife of the minister in a N48 billion contract scam under the sacked NDDC’s Managing Director, Nelson Bambraifa, who was reportedly nominated into that position by Amaechi, but fired on allegations of corruption.
The PDP described as unpardonable that the humongous sum in the NDDC contract scam involving the wife of the transport minister was allegedly siphoned under the guise of offering training to unsuspecting youths in the area.
It stated that “it is indeed disgraceful that under the APC that promised to fight and end corruption in the country, the public space is awash with revelations of sharing of government revenues among concubines, wives, girlfriends and family members of top APC leaders.
“This can only happen under the watch of an absentee president, who also condones corruption.”
