CNPP urges EFCC to probe Obasanjo's Third Term failed plot

By Gbenga Omokhunu, Abuja 

Obasanjo

• 'We want to know how N30 billion was wasted'

The Conference Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) yesterday urged  the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to investigate how over N30 billion was ‘wasted’ on former President Olusegun Obasanjo alleged Third Term bid.

 Obasanjo, in an interview with Channels , said he never "toyed with the idea of a third term" and that it was some members of the National Assembly that initiated the move to amend the constitution with a view to accommodating the plan.           

But CNPP, in a statement by its Publicity Secretary Osita Okechukwu,  said: "We want to know who authorised the opening of the Central Bank of Nigeria 's vault where over N30 billion was withdrawn, the foot soldiers who distributed monies to lobby National Assembly members, Chiefs, Emirs, Obas and sundry characters, and who collected."        

The group added: "Now that Senator Ibrahim Mantu, former Deputy Senate President (DSP) and Chairman Joint Constitutional Review Committee (JCRC) during the Third Term saga, has come out publicly to defend ex-president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo's revision of history and his infamous role in the failed bid that cost the nation over N30 billion; Conference Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) calls on the EFCC to probe the failed exercise. The EFCC is in good stead to carry out this probe because the Chairman of EFCC Ibrahim Lamorde was the Operations man in the Commission during this sordid era.

"We dismiss Senator Mantu's statement in its entirety and are of the candid view that the Third Term is much ado about the depletion of our natural resources, the failure of Obasanjo regime to complete any project, especially of the federal roads he awarded since assumption of office, even Ota-Agege-Abeokuta road and total criminal dislocation of our journey to true democracy.

 "The probe of the Third Term is a matter of utmost national importance, not only to recover our looted funds, a bleeding which took place when the Oil price was hovering at its peak of between $140 to $145 per barrel; but also to locate how Chief Obasanjo's failure to extend his tenure led to his adoption of do-or-die tactics hence the 2007 sham elections and the emergence of the incompetent government in our clime today."

SOURCE: The Nation, 10 April 2012. http://www.thenationonlineng.net/2011/