Culled From Thisday
The presidency Tuesday fired back at the House of Representatives Speaker, Hon. Aminu Tambuwal, over his
scathing comments on President Goodluck Jonathan's alleged
reluctance to fight corruption.
It described as unfortunate, the speaker's comments on Monday that the president's body language was encouraging
corruption.
But Jonathan's Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Dr.
Rueben Abati, in a burst of tweets, faulted Tambuwal, saying
the administration would not fight corruption based on
"speculations or bad politics."
Unlike the presidency, the All Progressives Congress (APC)
lauded Tambuwal for plucking the courage to speak out on
how the Jonathan administration has been encouraging
corruption by its lack of diligence in tackling the menace.
A report by an online news medium, Premium Times, quoted
Abati as saying via his twitter handle, @abati1990, that the
administration was doing all it could to stem the tide of
corruption in the country.
Tambuwal had spoken while responding to questions on
Monday after he presented a paper titled the 'Role of the
legislature in the fight against corruption in Nigeria' at a one-
day roundtable to mark the international anti-corruption day,
organised by the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) in Abuja
that the president seemed to be undermining the anti-graft war
by his handling of some notable corruption cases.
"Take the subsidy probe, the pension, the SEC probe and
recently the bulletproof car cases. After the House of
Representatives did a diligent job by probing and exposing
the cases, you now see something else when it comes to
prosecution.
"In some cases, you have the government setting up new
committees to duplicate the job already done by the
parliament. Take the bulletproof cars case, the NSA, with all
the security challenges confronting the country, should not be
burdened with a job that can best be handled by the anti-
corruption agencies," the speaker had said.
In his reaction, Abati, in a series of tweets, said: "Tambuwal
should focus more on the efforts of the administration in
fighting corruption, and comment on what he knows. The
administration is not going to fight corruption on the basis of
a mere speculation, or the bad politics being played by some
people. I think it is unfortunate that a man that is occupying
such a high office is talking about body language.
"He is certainly in a position to know the truth and defend
both his party and the government. He should make the effort
to know that government is investigating various matters and
working on them in accordance with due process. President
Jonathan will not condone any act of proven corruption. The
fight against corruption is ultimately a collective
responsibility."
The APC however differed from the presidency on
Tambuwal's comments as it expressed support for the speaker
over what it described as his principled stand on the Jonathan
administration's tepid fight against corruption.
In a statement yesterday by its interim National Publicity
Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the speaker
exhibited a leadership trait that was rare in this part of the
world by shunning partisanship to say that the president's
body language showed that he lacked the political will to fight
corruption.
It said: ''Hon. Tambuwal and President Jonathan belong to the
same political party, but this did not deter the speaker from
rising above crass partisanship when the issue involved
borders on national interest. This is the stuff of good
leadership.
''Hon. Tambuwal has shown that he is indeed the Speaker of
the Federal House of Representatives and that the entire
country is his constituency, unlike President Jonathan who has
transformed himself to a PDP and a sectional leader by
viewing serious issues of national importance from the prism
of partisanship and sectionalism.''
According to APC, it is delighted to be in the same company
with the speaker over Jonathan's nonchalant stand on
corruption, which has eaten deeper into the national fabric
und
No comments:
Post a Comment