Another view of Akpabio corruption cases
Across the globe where constitutional or parliamentary democracy is being practiced, the function of vibrant opposition is key to the high level performances of government at the all levels. The opposition is a constructive critic of government of the day to hold them accountable to the public and to formulate policies if need be in overall interest of the masses.The common belief that a healthy opposition is essential for the sound working of democracy implies that unless there is a vigilant opposition, constantly on the alert and ever watchful of the government's policies and actions, the ruling party would tend to get complacent and tardy. But, when there are well-informed critics, ever ready to expose the wrongs committed by the government, and to bring to light its acts of omission and commission, the ruling party can hardly afford to be slack and negligent in the performance of its duty towards the country—namely, to provide an efficient and sound administration.
The largest minority party constitutes the official opposition in Nigeria democratic system, with its own leader popularly knows as the “minority leader”. The leader of the opposition in Nigeria and in all democracy around the world is accorded official recognition with several facilities to enable him to function adequately. All of these is not aiming at anything than to make the government of the day to function efficiently. Benjamin Disraeli's dictum that "no government can long be secure without a formidable Opposition" has been found by experience to be quite true and fully valid. However, the character of the representatives of the opposition party is one of the determinants of how well the opposition can perform at any given time.
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The Nigeria opposition party, People Democratic Party (PDP) can be said as a political party that is still learning the art of opposition or as a victim of compulsory calmness as a result of monumental corruption enmeshed when they are the rulling party. The other time I was with a friend, we did statistics and we realized that about 80% of the PDP members who are flying the opposition flag today have one or two corruption cases to answer even as many have decamped to the rullig party, All Progressive Congress (APC). In this wise, PDP has alleged APC of orchestrated plans to subjugate the voice of the opposition with its lopsidedness fight against corruption. Whether this is true or not, the fact is that the EFCC, ICPC and other financial crime agencies continue the indictment of many PDP members to the extent that some of them have started returning part of the allegedly loots. If truly many of the allegations was vendetta against the PDP, how come some of their member and people served in their government are returning money? Alex Badeh, the General Comptroller Of Nigeria Customs and Musiliu Obanikoro, the minister of state for defence during Goodluck Jonathan reigns returns 1.04bn and 100million naira respectively?. It must then be cleared from the fore analysis that PDP cannot provide opposition that can put the APC on its toes because who ever have eaten from the stolen fried plantain can never be in the position to say the truth. (Eniti o ba ti je dodo, kole so ododo).
In relation to this, I launched a research as 2016 is winding down to look into the contributions of the opposition in the senate and I realized that nothing significantly has been achieved by them. I have not seen a situation where the opposition veto the senate president to do otherwise to his wishes or to the wishes of his party. It was based on this a source told me that the opposition leader Senator Godswill Akpabio has been “caged” and that he should not go against any resolution of the principal officers in the house till his time runs out. I asked whether the person is referring to his case with the EFCC which made the commission to detain him the other time?. The source told me that the one he is referring to is a fresh offence which has to do with the discovery of some documents relating to multi-million dollars businesses operating outside Nigeria by proxy for Akpabio. The source said that Akpabio offered to pay 500 million naira to prevent the documents being released to the public and that several shots that captured Akpabio prostrating, begging and sweating not to leak the documents were taken in case he wanted to out twist them.
The source, to authenticate his claim said, the last time the PDP stage a walk out to address journalists in Room2 of the National Assembly on the announcement of the defection of Senator Omogunwa from Ondo state was overturned in the same room as the minority leader and other PDP members agreed that they will take “sidonlook” position and to always stood behind Saraki even in a matters affecting them.
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This allegation, whether it is true or not, does not discountenance the fact that many of these politicians are corrupt and that has made them vulnerable to genuine and in-genuine attacks. As the senate scheduled to resume on the 10th, January 2017, the performances of Akpabio and other opposition members will be a measurement to either believe or disbelieve this allegation.
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