Saturday, October 19, 2013

Republished-Melaye’s group gives Aviation Minister 72-hour ultimatumtoresign


Many of us may not have the courage to do what you are doing, but just so you know, our prayers are with you if your intentions are genuine. I say this because in Nigeria, it is hard to know those who are fighting a sincere course. Asuu has been on strike for over four months, yet the head of labour is keeping quiet. Well, don't be quick to remind me that labour has no business with Asuu strike because my question will be, does Asuu join when labour is on strike? I guess you know the answer..


A civil rights group, Anti-Corruption Network, on Friday, gave the Aviation Minister, Stella Oduah, a 72 hour- ultimatum to resign or face mass protest.Stella OduahIt also threatened to take legal action should the minister fail to comply.The warning came following the alleged purchase of two bulletproof vehicles at the cost of N255m for Oduah by one of the parastatals under her ministry.The Executive Secretary of the group and former member of the House of Representatives, Dino Melaye, who stated this at a press briefing in Abuja, said that the purchase was against the monetisation policy of the Federal Government.“We give the minister 72 hours to resign and refund the money to government treasury — N255m tax payers’ money. Failure to do that, we will mobilise Nigerians from all walks of life to protest against this conflict of interest, abuse of office, corruption with impunity. And if by Thursday, the minister refuses to comply, we will file an action in court against the Aviation Ministry, the parastatal involved and the minister,” he said.“We are deeply worried that at a time when ASUU is on strike and the Federal Government is saying that it cannot afford the demands of ASUU despite the fact that there was an agreement, when even statutory allocations to states cannot be paid regularly, a minister will have the effrontery to order a parastatal under her to buy two bullet proof vehicles worth $800,000.00.“It is barbaric, satanic, wicked, unconstitutional and deliberate wickedness from the pit of hell. The question to ask is was the money appropriated for it by the National Assembly, if not, as we gathered, there are only two explanations: that the parastatal in question has been under-declaring her internally generated revenue or the money is kickbacks from the re-modelling of our airports.”While calling on President Goodluck Jonathan to immediately sack the minister if he was truly sincere about fighting corruption, Melaye pointed out that the money quoted for the vehicles was also over-inflated.“Was the purchase cleared by the Bureau of Public Procurement? Was the contract bidded for, what was the process and how did the winner emerge?” He asked.“Our investigations from bullet proof manufacturers from the US and Germany revealed that the vehicles were over-inflated. We discovered that the 2008 model of the BMW, the two vehicles actually cost less than N100m. “We arewaiting to see what uncle Jonathan will do to one of his neighbour-neighbour disciple. We are also waiting to see what NASS will do. This is an acid test for Mr. President, for the first time, we are calling on our president to fight corruption. This is an open case, the spokesman has already said it was to secure the life of the minister.”telegraphng

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