Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) has called on the Minister of Labour and Productivity, Emeka Wogu, and the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Elder Godspower Orubebe, to resign.
Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) has called on the Minister of Labour and Productivity, Emeka Wogu, and the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Elder Godspower Orubebe, to resign.
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Should they fail to, it asked President Goodluck Jonathan to fire both men, otherwise, CNPP would drag them before the Code of Conduct Bureau and other relevant anti-corruption agencies.
The position was contained in a statement issued after a consultative meeting of CNPP in Enugu today by its National Publicity Secretary, Osita Okechukwu.
The group said it had come to the inevitable conclusion that corruption was taking a toll on the administration of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, leading to a public trust deficit.
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The umbrella body of registered political parties noted that if urgent steps are not taken immediately to arrest the situation, the regime might end up being labeled as the most corrupt in the history of the country.
CNPP stressed that the Jonathan administration needs urgent cleansing to erase this ugly label either by compelling the two ministers who have been publicly found to have violently abused their oath of office and code of conduct for public officers as enshrined in the 1999 constitution, to resign, or sack them if there was no honour left in them to honourable resign.
“CNPP was outraged the day, the Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, announced to the whole world that one of the companies involved in defrauding the Nigeria state of N2.5 trillion in the 2011 fuel subsidy scam collected N2.7 billion and went into thin air; little did we know that Pinnacle Contractors Ltd is the family company of Chief Emeka Wogu, Minister of Labour and Productivity, until he owned up.
“Investigation reports that the Vessel listed by Pinnacle Contractors Ltd to collect the first tranch of N1.2 billion was not on Nigerian shores on the date of the fathom (sic) fuel delivery, just as the Vessel listed for the second tranch of N1.5 billion was moribund, which simply means that Chief Wogu and family defrauded Nigerians of N2.7 billion.”
CNPP also described as worrisome the fact that Pinnacle Contractors could not be located in the data base of the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), until Friday 30 November 2012, after several searches– with first Directors as Chief Emeka Wogu – 750,000 shares, Mrs Oyababefe Wogu -150,000 and Mr Enyinnaya Wogu – 100,000 shares respectively.
The group wondered how the Minister of Labour and Productivity can possibly provide employment and productivity when he descends into the arena to fleece the state of its meager resources, which could have been used to create employment, adding that Chief Wogu has no doubt contributed to the economic adversity in the land.
On Elder Godspower Orubebe, CNPP said it was stunned that the cost of the mansion built for him at Jabi Abuja, by Setraco Plc was enough to construct 100 km of the East-West road, which has become a shame on the Jonathan administration in which Orubebe is a senior and caucus member.
For their contribution to the economic adversity of the nation, CNPP concluded that Orubebe and Wogu should resign forthwith.
In the event of their failure to resign, the group called on President Jonathan to sack them in order to redeem the public deficit his regime suffers because of characters like Chief Wogu and Elder Orubebe.
Should none of those events happen, CNPP said it would be left with no option than to take them to the Code of Conduct Tribunal and other relevant agencies.
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