Missing Petrol Trucks: Unimaginable Plundering of Resources to finance Buhari’s Re-election Bid Underway – PDP

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has raised an alarm of a massive theft of the nation’s resources in a bid to secure fund for the re-election bid of President Muhammadu Buhari, accusing the All Progressives Congress (APC) led government of engaging in infractions to realise funds to pursue the 2019 general election.

In a statement signed by PDP’s Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Prince Diran Odeyemi, the party observed that a recent disclosure by the Managing Director of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Mikanti Baru, that 4,501 trucks of petroleum products went wissing, is a clear indication that resources are being illegally diverted to fund Mr. Buhari’s re-election.

Mr. Baru had last week disclosed that trucks Madden with petrol could not be traced when he appeared before the Senate Committee probing the scarcity of the product.

Mr. Odeyemi who called on security agencies to immediately launch probe on the disclosure by the nation’s oil firm chief, argued that situations such as the missing petroleum trucks, gave a clear picture of the plundering ongoing in the APC-led government.

“If trucks of petrol could suddenly develop wings and could not be traced in the ministry that is directly being supervised by President Muhammadu Buhari, the signs are rather obvious that the plundering of the nation’s commonwealth in ministries, departments and parastatals are at imaginable rate,” the main opposition spokesperson noted.

“This is one incident too many in the same ministry that recorded an unprecedented fraud last year when Mr. Ibe Kachuckwu, State Minister of Petroleum declared that Dr. Mikanti Baru helped himself with a whooping $25 million that belongs to the country.”

“The matter was swept under the carpet. This is another one. To say the obvious is that the cost of 4,501 truck runs into several billions of naira. If the tankers travelled through the land or sea boarders, then those saddled with the responsibilities of manning those places should be investigated.”

He expressed PDP’s shock over the disclosure of the missing truck, insisting that it suggested “additional means of stealing to finance APC and President Buhari’s re-election next year in addition to the proposed N1 billion daily funding of Boko Haram which the administration claimed have been technically defeated.”

Mr. Odeyemi flayed the APC-led government of not only giving out Mr. Buhari as largely ‘incompetent’ but that it also exposed Nigeria as not secure, noting that those missing petrol-ladden trucks must have been exchanged for fund to prosecute the 2019 elections.

Giving its suggestions on the cause of the accute fuel scarcity in the country which brought untold hardship on Nigerians during the Yekutide celebration, PDP blamed Mr. Buhari-led government, who he said went into a ‘sleepy mode’ and failed to addressed the issue promptly, saying such experience could only be witnessed in clime with weak or no government at all.

Credit: Sarafa Ibrahim