The All Progressives Congress has described the confirmation of Musiliu Obanikoro as a minister by the Senate, despite damaging implications in a rigging scandal in Ekiti State as a show of shame that further muddles the image of Nigeria and the Senate.
The party said that by its action, the Senate has shown that it is part of the grand conspiracy to institute a legacy of shame and corruption in Nigeria so long as such grows the selfish interests of the PDP.
On Wednesday, Obanikoro, who left President Goodluck Jonathan’s cabinet in October, last year to contest Lagos
State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship primaries and was defeated by Mr. Jimi Agbaje, was confirmed by the Senate in a rowdy session.
In fact, APC senators staged a walkout when Senate President, David Mark, told Obanikoro, enmeshed in the Ekiti rigging tape saga, to bow and go.
The Upper Chamber was tense before the clearance because the APC senators had been told by sources that Obanikoro would not be allowed to be asked any question.
When Obanikoro, the last of the four nominees to be screened, was called in and the APC senators saw where the situation was going, they started attacking their PDP counterparts verbally.
Senators Ganiyu Solomon, Gbenga Ashafa and others protested why Obanikoro should not be cleared but they were overruled by Mark.
All APC senators eventually walked out of the chamber.
In a statement in Lagos by the Lagos State Publicity Secretary of APC, Joe Igbokwe, the party said that the confirmation of Obanikoro shows the sinister intent of the Senate leadership and the PDP to institute deep rooted corruption and illegality in Nigeria so long as their nefarious interests are met. It says that the Senate leadership should cover its head in shame for trampling on the integrity of due process by confirming a person that was deeply implicated in an election rigging plot in Ekiti as a Minister despite wide ranging protests against his nomination.
“It is obvious that the PDP presidency that nominated Obanikoro and the PDP members of the Senate that forced through decency and protests of Nigerians to approve his nomination are hell bent on corrupting both the laws and institutions of the Nigerian State by that howling act of rewarding criminality. It was obvious that the ministerial nomination and the controversial confirmation are means by which a corrupt and senseless party wants to mock Nigerians, mock its laws and mock decency to reward a character that should be docked for crimes against the state. It is just too absurd that a party should visit these illegalities on a nation.
“The country is once again, assailed by the lawless inclination of the PDP as a party that thrives in such criminality as election rigging and which uses same to reward perpetrators who should be jailed for high crime which the Ekitigate scandal amounts to. What the Senate and its PDP members forced through in confirming Obanikoro is the audacious reign of illegality and impunity and Nigerians have a golden chance to throw the PDP to the dustbin of history on March 28.
“We note that the out going President, who was alleged to have set up the Ekiti rigging plot, has bluntly refused to investigate the Ekiti scandal but had rather nominated Obanikoro for ministerial position when he should be docked. It is also important to note that the PDP members of the Senate practically forced Obanikoro’s confirmation through the stout resistance of the APC senators, the human rights community, the press and the critical mass that see the entire process as rewarding crime and have therefore called for the withdrawal of Obanikoro’s nomination.
“While we call on the country’s media, civil society groups and the critical mass to continue to insist that this reward for criminality does not stand, we urge Nigerians to see In the appointment and confirmation of Obanikoro as PDP’s bold statement on impunity and corruption, which it had made cornerstones of its misrule and throw out the PDP with the vehemence of a people tired of such brazen promotion of criminality by a cabal that sees Nigeria as its private estate. We urge Nigerians to make a loud issue of the nomination and confirmation of an alleged election rigger as a minister few weeks to a critical election, as an insult to our collective intelligence and one of the primary reasons to throw out the PDP with an emphatic thud on March 28”.
