As strategic alliances and counter-alliances take place for the race for 2023, the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) has beckoned on President Muhammadu Buhari to openly tender a posthumous apology to the late former President Shehu Shagari, late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, and all Second Republic political actors who were 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.
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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 ₦983,000, and handed Kano’s former Governor Bakin Zuwo a 300-year jail term for having ₦3.4 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 ₦100 million nomination fees that Buhari’s ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) imposed on presidential aspirants and ₦50 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 ₦40,000,000, governorship N21,000,000, Senate ₦3,500,000, House of Representatives ₦2,500,000 and State House of Assembly N600,000.
In the All Progressives Congress (APC), the fees range from ₦100 million for presidential aspirants, ₦50 million for governorship aspirants, ₦20 million for senatorial aspirants, ₦10 million for House of Representatives aspirants and ₦2 million for state House of Assembly aspirants.
