The Minister of
Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has said the Federal Government,
under President Muhammadu Buhari, is not persecuting Jonathan and his wife,
Patience.
Speaking in an interview with journalists in
Oro, Kwara State, on Tuesday, Mohammed said it would be wrong to submit that
the Federal Government was probing Jonathan or Patience.
He said, “If you look at the history of Mrs.
Patience Jonathan’s issue, I think she was the one that came out to claim that
the money found in the accounts of one of the aides to the former President,
her husband, belonged to her.
“It was not the EFCC that claimed so. She
claimed that the money that the guy was being prosecuted for belonged to her.
It was only then they later found an extra $5m in another account.
“It is not as if anybody has gone out to probe
Mrs. Jonathan directly or indirectly. Rather Mrs. Jonathan was the one that
said ‘that money for which you are accusing Mr. X actually belongs to me. So,
you cannot start talking of prosecution or persecution.”
The minister said the Federal Government was
concerned about the current national economic recession and had initiated
measures to address it.
He stated that the current campaign of the
Federal Government, ‘‘Change begins with me,’’ was not only for the people but
also for the leaders.
Mohammed also said it was incorrect to accuse
Buhari’s government of being partisan, selective and vindictive in its
anti-corruption war.
He said Buhari would also not spare any APC
member accused or guilty of corruption.
He said, “People have always said that no APC
politician had been investigated. The question is ‘those who are those being
prosecuted today, for what reasons are they being prosecuted?
“It is wrong to say that the government is only
investigating and prosecuting PDP members. We have not even started
investigating the oil and gas industry. It is not about going out to
investigate PDP. No!
‘‘We lost about 15,000 people. Nobody can, in
honesty, accuse the FG of being one sided.’’
No comments:
Post a Comment