The Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders(CACOL) has condemned President Goodluck Jonathan and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for associating with corruption and corrupt people.
Reacting to the news of an ex-convict, Chief Olabode George vying for the party’s Board of Trustee Chairman and other candidates with questionable pedigree, the Executive Chairman of CACOL, Debo Adeniran derided the President and his party for glorifying and romancing corruption with such impunity and without recourse to morality.
“It is sickening that the President, who should show better example for the masses to follow, could glorify corruption with such impunity. Jonathan could not have been serious with his fight against corruption. He is just paying lip service to it. He is supposed to shame and despise corrupt leaders, but he is giving presidential recognition to them.
Imagine the President appointing Chief Tony Anenih, whose only achievement as Minister of Works and Housing, was diverting billions of dollars meant for building and rehabilitating our roads into his private coffers, as the Chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority, and the same Anenih is also vying for the PDP Board of Trustee Chairman. It is very shameful that our President’s list of associates is replete with criminals. This same President Jonathan was showering praises on former Governor of Bayelsa State cum ex-convict, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, as his political benefactor sometimes ago.
The President and his political party are so barefaced and really do not give a damn about what the people think about their actions. It is so saddening that a president that claims to be fighting corruption is dining and wining with ex-convicts. The signal the President with his political party is sending to the Nigerian citizenry is that, conviction is no longer a stigma in this part of the world since they (convicts) would be celebrated and even compensated with political appointments as soon as they come out of jail,”he said.
Abimbola Adegoke
Media Officer
15 January, 2013