Stop Hounding Our Members, PDP Tells FG

• Accuses APC of Intrusion in Metuh’s Trial

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has asked the federal government to concentrate on the fight against corruption and stop hounding members of the opposition parties.

In the same vein, the party has asked President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately call his party, All Progressives Congress (APC) and some of his appointees to order over their manifest interest and continued interference in the trial of its former National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh.

The party frowned at the motion ex-parte filed by the Special Presidential Investigation Panel for the Recovery of Public Property seeking the forfeiture of assets allegedly not declared by the Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, alleging plots to silence the opposition.

In a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbodiyan, THURSday, the party said while the PDP was in full support of any genuine anti-graft war, the (APC)-led administration’s obsession with Ekweremadu was another clear indication that it was not ready to fight corruption, but rather out to scandalise, persecute, and bring down its perceived opponents.

It said: “The PDP recalls that this government rushed to arraign Senator Ekweremadu and the Senate president, Dr. Bukola Saraki in 2016 on trumped up charges of forgery of Senate Standing Rule, even when there was not even a mention of their names in the contentious police report or Proof of Evidence. It eventually withdrew the charges for lack of merit.

“The police raided and ransacked Ekweremadu’s official guest house in Abuja in May 2017 and blamed it on false whistleblowers, whom they charged to court. Nothing has been heard about the trial of the alleged false whistleblowers again.

“In the current matter, apart from relying on an obsolete law to dabble into the roles of the Code of Conduct Bureau, we are not surprised that the Panel could not carry out a thorough and independent investigation on the purported property of the senator, but relied on a petition by the former Chief Judge of Enugu State, Justice Innocent Umezulike, who is standing corruption trial in several courts, after his removal from office by the National Judicial Council (NJC) in 2017.

“We recall that the senator accused Umezulike and some politicians of stealing and doctoring his will, inserting non-existent properties or properties that had nothing to do with him.

“It is also instructive that this calculated smear campaign in the guise of forfeiture of phantom assets came on the heels of Ekweremadu’s alarm and scathing criticism of the APC-led administration over the nation’s deteriorating democracy and in the midst of the ongoing executive-legislature faceoff, in which a ranking senator of the APC extraction identified Ekweremadu as a pillar of support to the senate president.”

The PDP said contrary to the federal government’s claims, Ekweremadu had assured it that he declared his assets.
It wondered why the federal government, by its own admission, rushed to court without completion of investigation, but had turned deaf ears to the outcry by Nigerians for the prosecution of the administration’s functionaries and friends indicted of corruption.

“This government and party have a wet appetite for prosecution and media trial of the opposition while investigation is on, but refuses to prosecute its members and friends indicted by even its own presidential or ministerial panels.

“While members of the opposition are taken to court on stretchers, the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Mr. Babachir Lawal, indicted by both the Senate and a presidential panel only got a pat on the back.
“The APC federal government has failed to prosecute those involved in the Ikoyigate scandal, and the recall of fugitive Abdulrasheed Maina, among others.

“Ekweremadu is a major symbol of the opposition. We believe that this is part of the grand plan to strangulate the PDP ahead of the 2019 elections and we will resist” it added.

The PDP further alleged that Ekweremadu’s travail was part of the grand plan to strangulate the opposition ahead of 2019 election and challenged the federal government to publish the assets of APC political office holders.
Similarly, PDP yesterday asked President Buhari to urgently put a stop to interferences by APC and its agents in the trial of its former spokesman, Olisa Metuh.

The party also urged the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) to protect the institution of the judiciary and the courts from alleged direct interferences of the APC and officials of the federal government in the conduct of cases involving its members and particularly, the former National Publicity Secretary.

Ologbondiyan, in a statement on yesterday, said the connection between the timing of happenings in the court case and the intrusions of the APC in the entire matter has assumed a worrisome dimension.

The party also said its members have specifically expressed fear about Chief Metuh’s fate before Justice Okon Abang, a judge, it said had in the past delivered judgments against the PDP, which were eventually upturned, after much damage had been done.

“The PDP finds it curious that interferences are manifesting in Metuh’s case even after the court had adjourned indefinitely on his application to be allowed to travel to the UK for surgery.

“This court had twice rejected Chief Metuh’s applications for medical leave at the initial stage of his ailment, but the condition of the former PDP spokesman has now degenerated.

“It is on record that people facing similar charges at the Federal High Court are granted leave to travel for ordinary medical check-ups and other sundry reasons, but Metuh has had his application for medical treatment deferred indefinitely and had to be brought to court for trial even on a hospital stretcher.

“The fact remains that if the court cannot grant Metuh leave for medical treatment, moreso, with the manifest interference of the APC, then there is absolutely no guarantee that he can get justice from the same court at the end of the day and we want the CJN to take copious note of this.

“The PDP notes that no other application for medical leave has ever been subjected to a greater burden of proof, ridicule and undue delay than the case of our former spokesperson.
“We strongly hold that the APC is now manipulating issues around this case as a reference point to threaten opposition in the country.

“The APC, in their bid to sway the case, even attempted to discredit Chief Metuh’s referral to Wellington hospital, London, by writing to twist facts about a world renowned surgeon, just to prepare grounds for the court to reject his application.

“We therefore urge the CJN to rise up in defence of the judiciary before it is ruined by the APC,” it said.