Kwara state PDP says they are behind Toyin Saraki’s EFCC probe
PDP Kwara state chapter says its behind the invitation of the
state's ex first lady and wife of senate president Toyin Saraki by the
EFCC. In a statement released today July 26th, the state chapter said it
had earlier petitioned the antigraft agency over Mrs Saraki's alleged
involvement in corrupt activities with some government officials during
her husband's administration as governor of Kwara state. The party in
the statement said Mrs Saraki's arrest and detention is long overdue
"It has become imperative to inform the members of the public that we have every reasons to believe that a petition recently submitted to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Kwara state chapter, is largely responsible for the invitation and eventual criminal prosecution of the former Kwara First Lady and wife of the Senate President, Mrs. Toyin Saraki.
It will
be recalled that our party had sometime early this year discreetly
submitted a petition to the EFCC detailing how certain individuals in
high places under the past administration of Dr. Bukola Saraki milked
the state dry and left the people more impoverished than they met them.
In the said petition, we carefully chronicled how state officials,
including former First Lady, Toyin Saraki; former Special Adviser to the
Governor on MDGs, Mr. Ope Saraki; Personal Assistant (PA) to
ex-Governor Bukola Saraki, one Mr. Abdul Adama from Kogi state; a former
Commissioner for Information, Mr. Tunji Morounfoye, all working in a
ring, got enmeshed in a cesspool of corruption unprecedented in the
history of Kwara state or any other state of the federal for that
matter!
Although, we believe that the arrest and prosecution of Mrs.
Toyin Saraki is long overdue, we nevertheless take solace under the fact
that the long arm of the law seems to have finally caught up with her
and her cronies.
We are particularly delighted that our painstaking
efforts at chronicling the monumental heist that defined the eight
years, almost uneventful rule of former Governor Bukola Saraki in Kwara,
has not gone unnoticed. We therefore commend the EFCC for its
resourcefulness and painstakingness. We pledge our cooperation with the
EFCC and all other relevant anti-graft agencies to ensure that all those
who knowingly looted our collective patrimony, but now walking the
streets of Kwara free with their ill-gotten wealth, do not go
unpunished.
“We urge the anti-graft agency not to buckle in to pressure
or blackmail that is already being mounted by political jobbers over
Mrs. Saraki’s invitation by the EFCC. Instead of sponsoring paid
activist-for-hire to stampede the EFCC out of the prosecution, one would
have thought that the most moral thing for Toyin Saraki and her
handlers to do now is to allow the law to take its cause. Since the duo
of Ope Saraki and Tunji Morounfoye are already standing trial for their
crimes, one would expect Mrs. Saraki too to seize the moment and clear
her name, instead of playing to the gallery.
“For the avoidance of
doubt, we reiterate that the offences Mrs. Saraki is being accused of
are criminal in nature and such offences are not known to be
statute-barred. Therefore, the fact that it took over five years after
Mrs. Saraki left office as Kwara First Lady before she is eventually
brought before the law does not matter.
“What matters is that justice is
ultimately served, especially for the sake of the hard-working Kwara
civil servants, poor Kwara farmers and the promising children of Kwara
who were and are still being subjected to all manners of deprivations as
a result of the rapaciousness of a privileged few who could not contain
the temptations to stare clear the cookie jar.”
No comments