Akande, an ex-convict, PDP insists

[TGD]

THE People's Democratic Party (PDP) in the South-West on Sunday insisted that the National Chairman of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Chief Bisi Akande, is a former convict having been allegedly found guilty of fraud by a duly constituted tribunal.

While faulting a claim by the ACN spokesman, Lai Mohammed, that the party's leader was a political prisoner and not a convict, the PDP maintained that "as far as the law is concerned, Chief Bisi Akande is an ex-convict, having been duly convicted and was only released from prison and not granted state pardon."

The ACN spokesperson had in a statement said "any attempt to label Chief Akande an ex-convict in a pejorative sense will be an exercise in futility, because he was neither convicted for abuse of office nor for any corruption-related offence by a duly constituted court."

But the PDP in a statement by its zonal Publicity Secretary, Kayode Babade, said: "Instead of trying to play with words, the ACN should tell Nigerians why the same Special Military Tribunal set up by the Gen. Muhammadu Buhari regime that jailed Chief Bisi Akande for fraud freed people like the late Chief Adekunle Ajasin and Alhaji Lateef Jakande?"

It also berated the ACN spokesperson for comparing Akande's conviction and imprisonment with that of Nelson Mandela, saying: "Even a deranged mind knows what Mandela was jailed for and it was not for using public money to fund political party.

"It is therefore an insult for anyone to compare the imprisonment of someone that was convicted for fraud with that of Mandela, who was jailed for his struggle to free South-Africa from slavery.

"It is a fact that the military government of Buhari, the same man the ACN people are working an alliance with, tried some public office holders in 1984 for misappropriation of public funds. Many of those tried were freed because they were not found guilty while those that were found guilty were jailed.

"Among those that were found guilty of fraud and jailed was Chief Bisi Akande and he was only released from prison by the Gen. Ibrahim Babangida's regime. He was not granted state pardon. The records are there! So what do you call such a person other than ex-convict?"

The Guardian

[TGD]