Hadizagate: Arrest Amaechi, wife, embattled NPA MD now – PDP

The opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Monday in Abuja called on President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately sack and arrest the Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, the embattled NPA Managing Director, Hadiza Bala Usman and Rotimi Amaechi’s wife, Edith Amaechi.

In a statement which was issued and signed by the National Publicity Secretary of the party, Kola Ologbodiyan, it said where NPA was Amaechi and Hadiza’s cesspool of corruption, the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) was Rotimi Amaechi’s wife’s cash cows and Automated Teller Machines.

The party noted that some
leaders of the All Progressives Congress and their cronies in government have unbridledly looted the nation’s patrimony with President Muhammadu Buhari watching supine.

“The Peoples Democratic Party demands the immediate sack, investigation and prosecution of Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi.

“The suspended Managing Director of the Nigeria Ports Authority, Hadiza Bala-Usman, should be sacked and handed over to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission over exposed looting of over N165 billion in the agency.

PDP further tackles the Minister of Transportation and ask him to explain his role in the reported connection in the alleged involvement of his wife, Mrs Edith Amaechi, in the exposed N48 billion contract scam currently rocking the Niger Delta Development Commission.

The party insisted that it was suspicious and incomprehensible for any sane person to believe the seriousness of the Minister who raise query on alledged misappropriation of N165 billion of an agency under his ministry after six years.

“This is in addition to reports from the Office of the Auditor General which also unearthed the looting of unremitted deduction to Federal Inland Revenue Service amounting to N3,667,750,470; $148,845,745.04; Euro 4,891,449.50 and £252.682.14 under the suspended NPA Managing Director and Amaechi’s ministerial supervision.

“The audit report also exposed another N15.18 billion allegedly siphoned through shady Corporate Social Responsibility projects by the NPA, an agency under Amaechi’s ministerial purview.

“The PDP therefore rejects the obvious attempt at a cover-up in the recourse to an Administrative Panel of Enquiry recommended by the transport minister to investigate the NPA fraud, in which he also has some questions to answer.”

Continuing, it said, “Our party insists that both the minister and the indicted NPA Managing Director should be handed over to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for investigation and possible prosecution.

“Moreover, Nigerians are appalled that fingers of fraud allegation are also pointing to the wife of the transport minister in a N48 billion contract scam under the sacked NDDC’s Managing Director, Nelson Bambraifa, who was reportedly nominated into that position by the Minister of Transportation, Amaechi, but fired on allegations of corruption.

“The PDP describes as unpardonable that the humongous sum in the NDDC contract scam involving the wife of the transport minister was allegedly siphoned under the guise of offering training to unsuspecting youths in the area.

“It is indeed disgraceful that under the APC that promised to fight and end corruption in our country, the public space is awash with revelations of sharing of government revenues among concubines, wives, girlfriends and family members of top APC leaders.”

Ologbondiyan said that what had happened in NPA could only happen under the watch of an absentee president, who condone corruption.