The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) said on Thursday that the damning 2019 corruption index report on Nigeria by Transparency International (TI) has vindicated it on the country’s corruption status.
The opposition has constantly alleged that corruption in the country has worsened under President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) administration.
The PDP had also asked the Buhari Presidency and the APC to account for the over N14 trillion allegedly stolen by APC leaders from government coffers in the last four years.
The Transparency International released a fresh Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2019, which showed Nigeria, out of the 19 countries in the West African region, as being ranked the fourth most corrupt.
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The TI revealed that Nigeria has moved down from 148th place to 146th, out of 180 countries in the 2019 corruption Perception Index (CPI), two places down compared to 2018.
However, the PDP through it National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, in a statement issued in Abuja, described the index as a national embarrassment.
It stated that “under an administration by the same leader who wears the medal as “African Union (AU) Anti-Corruption Champion”, and whose government boasts of zero-tolerance for corruption, the nation now ranks as the fourth-most corrupt country in West African and one of the leading most corrupt countries of the world.”
“The TI report, which shows our country dropping to a malodorous 26, from the already disapproving 27 points it maintained since 2017, had further exposed the Buhari administration and the APC as merely posturing as saints and hounding innocent Nigerians with a fake anti-corruption war, while engaged in unprecedented looting of our national resources.
“It indeed speaks volume that the Buhari administration and the APC that came into power in 2015 on an anti-corruption mantra, has ended up becoming the most corrupt in the history of our dear nation.
“Moreover, the fact that the APC and its government, with their numerous megaphones, have remained silent over the report is also very revealing.
“By this TI report, Nigerians are no longer in doubt as to why our nation has been plagued with worsening economic hardship, poverty and hunger, dilapidated infrastructure and devastating retrogression in critical sectors such as health, power, education, transport, agriculture among others in the last four years while APC leaders, their families and cronies, gloat in affluence to the chagrin of Nigerians,” PDP stated.
Going by the released new corruption index, the PDP still insists that Buhari should explain the stolen N9 trillion detailed in the NNPC leaked memo; the N1.1 trillion worth of crude oil allegedly stolen by certain APC leaders using 18 unregistered vessels; the over N1.4 trillion stolen from shady oil subsidy deals as well as monies stolen from sensitive government agencies including the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) among others.
“It is now clear that the Buhari administration and the APC have not only failed in their boasts to tackle corruption and insecurity but have ended up economically despoiling our nation and worsening our security challenges.
“The fact remains that the Buhari Presidency and the APC cannot controvert these damning facts. The only thing left for them is to apologize to Nigerians and get ready for their place in the dustbin of history as the worst government and political party ever in the history of our nation,” Ologbondiyan stated.
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