The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State has thrown its weight behind Pres- ident Muhammadu Buhari in his bid to investigate and recover the billions of naira believed to be looted by the immediate past administration.
As if probes were meant for en- emies or to settle scores, the party pointed to areas where the former minister of education, Nyesom Wike, now governor of the state, served for urgent investigation.
The APC said: “We received with great joy news of the resolution by President Buhari to go after those who stole Nigeria blind and virtually grounded the country’s economy. For six years we shouted ourselves hoarse on corruption, but sadly, nobody believed us. Now, the recent revelations have proved us right. If not by the grace of God and the re- solve of Nigerians to vote out the past government, the ship of our nation would have been grounded by now.”
According to APC state chair- man, Davis Ibiamu Ikanya, the impending recovery of stolen funds and stoppage of systemic leakages could be the beginning of the journey towards building the ideal Nigerian nation.
The party appealed to Buhari to thoroughly investigate the Wike years at the Federal Ministry of Education especially the N20Bn allegedly voted for the purchase of books for Federal Government in- stitutions, saying no book was pur- chased or distributed; the Almajiri school scheme, the Universal Basic Education (UBEC) and the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND).
The APC said N87billion was approved for the Ministry but not utilised; that the whereabouts of the 15 UBEC Toyota Hilux buses that Wike allegedly took away for gubernatorial election campaign had not been returned; and that over N180billion UBEC funds alleg- edly frittered away on book supply contracts needed to be looked into.
The party raised suspicions over the recent fire that razed down a section of the Ministry (Basic Edu- cation Section) in Abuja containing relevant and sensitive documents.
“We should unravel why the fire incident took place and why only this section should be burnt. Was it for the sole purpose of covering up the illegal transactions of the immediate past administration? The burnt documents included the ones for the contracts.We want the Buhari administration to, as a matter of urgency, look into this now that he wants to recover looted funds,” Rivers APC said.
IGNATIUS CHUKWU
