The Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to t posthumously apologize to the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, late former President Shehu Shagari and other Second Republic political actors charged and jailed for corruption after the December 1983 coup.
The call was contained in a statement on Monday, by OPC President, Otunba Wasiu Afolabi.
This is coming in reaction to the fees imposed on political aspirants for the nomination forms of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
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The ruling party charges N100 million for its its presidential ticket, while N50 million is for governorship aspirants.
The OPC president 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 amount charged by the ruling party,OPC said it defeated the essence of regarding public service as service to the people.
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“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,”
“It shows the level of degeneracy and indecency to which we have sunk as a people. We have totally lost our values.”
