Posted by From BASHIR UMAR, Abuja on
A member of the Senate Ad Hoc Committee investigating the activities of the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF), Senator Rufai Hanga, has sensationally declared that, based on their findings so far, both President Olusegun Obasanjo and Vice President Atiku Abubakar are guilty.
A member of the Senate Ad Hoc Committee investigating the activities of the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF), Senator Rufai Hanga, has sensationally declared that, based on their findings so far, both President Olusegun Obasanjo and Vice President Atiku Abubakar are guilty.
The duo, according to him, were so much neck-deep in the alleged misappropriation of the fund that neither of them would escape being indicted in the committee's final report.
In an exclusive interview with Sunday Sun, Senator Hanga, a stalwart of the Action Congress (AC) from Kano, explained that the PTDF Committee was still compiling the report of its findings on the allegations and counter-allegations from both Obasanjo and Atiku, indicting each other in the PTDF scam.
The Senator denied reports that he was writing a minority report on the PTDF investigation, saying there was no basis for such an action since he and every other member of the Ad hoc committee have been making concerted effort to get to root of the case in the interest of all Nigerians.
Interestingly, the PTDF scandal is one of the grounds on which the presidency is currently seeking a court order to declare Atiku as unfit to contest the April presidential elections on the platform of Action Congress (AC).
The PTDF scam blew open last year following allegations by the Obasanjo camp that the vice president had misappropriated the fund running into billions of naira which meant to build capacity in the oil service sector. But Atiku has consistently maintained that the charges were trumped up, insisting that the thing that has been established against him is to have directed that PTDF funds be placed in a local bank as fixed deposit which yielded interests to the government.
ANPP/AC alliance
On the ANPP/AC alliance, Senator Hanga reassured that 'it is a good one". He declined further comments because 'of a standing instruction that only Buhari and Atiku could talk about their relationship on political alliance."
He nevertheless expressed optimism that in whatever guise, the future is bright for the two leaders who he said are not strange bed-fellows, adding that an understanding must be reached 'because there must be one person as the presidential candidate that will represent the alliance."
Notwithstanding, Hanga stated that his party, AC, has been 'turned into a cult, run by a few people who see themselves as demi-gods instead of party leaders."
Citing an instance with the gubernatorial primaries of the party in Kano in which he and eight others contested, the Seantor said it was a clear demonstration of hand-picking of anointed candidates instead of a democratic exercise.
He noted that it was the crude nature of the exercise that made former speaker of the House of Representatives, Alhaji Gali Na'abba, throw in the towel even before the primaries started.
'The ad hoc committee appointed to handle the election (primaries) just collated the results and manufactured what they wanted and announced as results, which showed an entirely different figure from the votes collated by each and every aspirant's representatives," he alleged.
He further revealed that 'the chairman of the committee confirmed that the results were only manufactured to favour the anointed candidate who himself confirmed that there was no election because agents were not allowed to participate in the collation of results because some people were anointed."
Senator Hanga said even the members of the Board of Trustees of the party like Tom Ikimi, Musa Gwadabe, Yomi Edu and others had witnessed the injustice perpetrated and disapproved of it, but to his surprise, 'they later called me back to tell me that Musa Gwadabe asked that they appeal to me and beg that I should forget and overlook what happened because there is no time for another election."
Another regrettable phenomenon happening in virtually every party in Nigeria, Senator Hanga observed, 'is the fact that if somebody does not like your face in a party, he will simply influence that you be deregistered, just like Governor Shekarau asked them to deregister me from the ANPP in Kano and look at it, again, where I have been duly registered what is happening to me."
Reason for de-registering him in Kano along with many others, he said, was because they would not keep quiet and watch 'while atrocities were being committed in high offices of the government of Kano State."