The Buhari Media Organisation on Tuesday accused the Peoples Democratic Party of lying against Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo over an alleged indictment by a House of Representatives’ committee.
It said Osinbajo was “never indicted by the House of Representatives’ Committee on Emergency and Disaster Preparedness in 2018” as claimed by the PDP.
The PDP had in a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr Kola Ologbodiyan, on Monday, asked Osinbajo to explain his role in an alleged N33bn NEMA fraud, it also alleged that the Vice-President was indicted by a committee of the House of Representatives.
However, the BMO in a statement signed by its Chairman Niyi Akinsiju and Secretary Cassidy Madueke, on Tuesday said, the PDP had developed an infamous reputation for peddling “false, unverifiable claims.”
The BMO said, “There was nowhere in the report by the then House Committee on Emergency and Disaster Preparedness that a single allegation of corruption was made against Professor Osinbajo.
“In fact, the Committee Chairman, Hon. Ali Isa, who incidentally was a PDP representative from Gombe State, publicly admitted at plenary that the Vice-President was not mentioned in the report.
“For the avoidance of doubt and the need to correct the false impression, the approval by the Vice-President was not for the release of N33bn. It was for the N5.8bn Emergency Food Intervention Fund for the North-East and was within his powers, back then, as acting President.”
The statement explained that Osinbajo who was then acting President, acted in response to the threat of hunger and starvation based on information received from the UN World Food Programme in April 2017, that it would be reducing its vital support to about 1.8 million IDPs by as much as 85%, due to the reduction in funding by donor countries.
“Just like the Presidency said back then, we view this latest allegation against the Vice-President as a feeble attempt by a party which is synonymous with large scale corruption to smear the Buhari administration with the dirt it is known for,” it added.
BMO dismissed the PDP statement as diversionary noting that, “It is on record that under the Obasanjo administration, $1.2bn was recovered in 2002, $149m in 2003, $500m in 2004 and another $458m in 2005.
“The Jonathan government received $1bn in 2012, $227m and $48m in 2014 and $380m in 2015, but surprisingly there is no official record of how these recovered funds were used in the PDP years of the locust.”