The presidency yesterday took a swipe at the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), saying the party was bent on returning to power in 2019 just to continue their circle of corruption.
According to Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, anything that causes President Muhammadu Buhari to lose the 2019 general elections will spell doom for the country.
He said only discerning minds can understand this.
In his opinion piece, he said even Buhari fell victim of his own war against graft in the 80s and that it was only when the authorities learnt of his mother’s death that they let him out of the net.
“Top opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members have been granting press interviews and addressing zonal political rallies talking about ‘Changing the Change’ in next year’s general elections, without defining what exactly that means.
“As the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) gears up to celebrate the completion of three years of the Buhari government at the centre on May 29, Nigerians need to be reminded of what the reversal of the achievements of this administration will amount to.
“The real meaning and cost of the ‘Changing the Change’ is that if they win the next election, they will not take us back to where we were in 2015, they will mostly reverse the progress the APC has brought to the nation.
“The main reason for the defeat of the PDP in 2015 was corruption. The present administration at the centre led by President Muhammadu Buhari has so far presented a corrupt-free image of itself.
“It has also succeeded in abolishing grand corruption at the top and as attested to by the American President Donald Trump.
“The government has significantly brought down the level of corruption in the whole country. It has, however, warned over and again that corruption was fighting back.
“Many who are discerning would have read this from President Buhari’s speech when he inaugurated the impressive new headquarters building of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) a week ago.
“He narrated how and why he was overthrown as a military Head of State in the 80s. In that speech, he said not only was he kicked out because he fought corruption, the ones who took power freed all those that he had jailed, and whatever they stole was returned to them.
“He took their place in prison and stayed there without trial for 36 months, until that day when a journalist in Benin, now in Edo, broke the story that he had lost his mother. That was when he was allowed to go home.
“The real difference between the PDP and the current APC administration is that although they mouthed a flood of rhetoric against corruption, in fact rightfully lay the claim of founding the institutions now in the forefront of fighting corruption as a government, the EFCC and the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC), they had intended to keep them as toys, or bulldogs which teeth had been removed.
“No, they never intended that the war against corruption would be taken this far.”
