Oil theft: What We Found Shocked Us, Says APC

The All Progressives Congress has said it was shocked at the magnitude of cases of corruption it has so far unearthed while going through the records of the previous administration.

The National Publicity Secretary of the party, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said this in a telephone interview with our correspondent in Abuja, on Thursday.

He was reacting to the announcement by President Muhammadu Buhari that some officials of the immediate past administration were involved in stealing one million barrel of crude oil daily.

Mohammed said, “We are not just shocked but taken aback by what we have found. We have always known that there was monumental corruption under the previous regime but we did not know it was this huge.

“Anybody who calls the questions we are asking a witch-hunt is a person who condones corruption, and again, when we were raising the alarm over this level of corruption they were engaged in, they said we were crying wolf where there was none.

“They said it never happened. They even went as far as manufacturing figures to cover up. We must ask questions so that whoever is coming into government will know that it cannot be business as usual and that he/she must be prepared to answer questions after they leave office.”

On its part, the Peoples Democratic Party said the allegations of impropriety levelled against the officials of the Goodluck Jonathan-led administration must be proved in court.

The Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the party, Alhaji Abdullahi Jalo, said to the best of his knowledge, the PDP-led administration conducted its affairs transparently, as such, the party was not afraid of any probe.

He said, “Like I told you before, the PDP provided a transparent leadership for this country for the 16 years we were in power.

“It was the PDP that established the anti-corruption agencies we are celebrating today, like the EFCC and the ICPC. All we ask is that any probe of the last administration should not be used as an avenue to villify people who served this country diligently.”

Punch