The Ondo state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) on Saturday advised the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and its sympathizers to encourage the detained PDP’s Chairman, Clement Faboyede, and his co-traveler, Tokunbo Modupe, to prove their innocence before a competent court of law, instead of resorting to blackmail of a system that means well.
Publicity Secretary of APC, in the State, Alex Kalejaye, said the resolve of the PDP to turn attack on the APC, instead of planning how to defend one of its principals betrays the weakness of its defense, if any.
Kalejaye reacted to a statement credited to the Zonal Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Ayo Fadaka, to the effect that the duo had done nothing fraudulent.
Fadaka was quoted as saying” we wish to state categorically that the APC is merely abusing the privileges of power to prosecute the PDP endlessly, this we consider pedestrian and cheap”,
The APC spokesman said he would have ignored the attack for its pettiness, “but the need to guide people’s mind against pollution makes this reaction a necessity”.
He argued that the PDP as a party has a duty to commend the current administration for succeeding where the former failed in its 16 years of reckless and crude financial allocations and sharing, saying the APC is on a rescue mission.
Kalejaye said: “The PDP does not reserve the right under the law to tell the good people of Nigeria whether an individual is a criminal or not; nor when an act is deemed to be criminally fraudulent. That is why the court is there.
“If the former PDP chairman is accused of financial crime, one would have expected his party to urge him to defend himself and prove his innocence, if he is convinced, instead of raising needless alarm”.
He expressed surprise that a faithful of the PDP could be talking about abuse of power when “every political observer could vividly recall the brutish approach to, and deployment of power under former president Olusegun Obasanjo.”
The APC spokesman warned that the APC would not be deterred by blackmail of whatever coloration in its quest to recover the taxpayer’s money that was mindlessly starched away, irrespective of party affiliations.
The three charges pressed against Messers Faboyede and Modupe border on conspiracy and money laundering.
Faboyede was being accused of making N500m cash payment to the Ondo State Election Committee of the PDP.