The Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) has told President Muhammadu Buhari to tender a posthumous apology to the late former President Shehu Shagari, late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, and all Second Republic political actors charged and jailed for corruption after the December 1983 coup.
In a statement on Monday, OPC President, Otunba Wasiu Afolabi, said that the exorbitant fees currently imposed on political aspirants’ nomination forms rubbished the corruption claims that Buhari had made in 1983 when he overthrew Shagari.
Afolabi said: “Who can believe that this was the same Buhari whose military tribunal sentenced people like former Bendel State’s Governor Ambrose Alli to 100 years in prison for supposedly misappropriating N983,000, and handed Kano’s former Governor Bakin Zuwo a 300-year jail term for having N3.4 million at home?
“Like he did in the military coup of 1983, Buhari came into office in 2015 on the mantra of fighting corruption. Now he has been defeated by corruption. The consensus leadership he recently helped to impose on the party is charging aspirants outrageous sums to contest for tickets and the President failed to call things to order.
“He owes the likes of Shagari, Awolowo, Bakin Zuwo, Alex Ekwueme an unreserved apology for overthrowing them. The so-called corruption of the Second Republic is nothing compared to what obtains today as evidenced in the unreasonable amount demanded for procuring parties’ nomination forms by aspirants.”
Describing as outrageous the N100 million nomination fees that Buhari’s ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) imposed on presidential aspirants and N50 million for governorship aspirants, OPC said it defeated the essence of regarding public service as service to the people.
“By these charges, the current generation of politicians have raised the bar of corruption. It shows that they lack plans to revamp the economy and cater to the needs of the common man,” Afolabi said.
“It shows the level of degeneracy and indecency to which we have sunk as a people. We have totally lost our values.”
Recall that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) fees for President is N40,000,000, governorship N21,000,000, Senate N3,500,000, House of Representatives N2,500,000 and State House of Assembly N600,000.
In the All Progressives Congress (APC), the fees range from N100 million for presidential aspirants, N50 million for governorship aspirants, N20 million for senatorial aspirants, N10 million for House of Representatives aspirants and N2 million for state House of Assembly aspirants.
