By Editor
The views of the United States that the President Muhammadu Buhari led Federal Government of Nigeria is not financially transparent may have found a new evidence in the report of massive siphoning of trillions of naira of taxpayer’s money collected by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (IRS).
Nigeria’s leading opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) describes the revelation of variances pointing to the massive siphoning as further confirming its stance that the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led Buhari Presidency is neck-deep in corruption and looting of the country’s common patrimony.
The PDP, in a public communication circulated on Monday, August 19, in Abuja, stated that the discovery of variances in the remission of taxes vindicates their concerns about underhand dealings and frittering of monies collected as taxes in the last four years.
The party noted that Nigerians are not deceived by the desperation by agents of the Buhari Presidency to cover its complicity by seeking a fall guy in the Executive Chairman of FIRS, Babatunde Fowler.
The PDP said that a critical study of the leaked correspondence from the Chief of Staff to the President, Malam Abba Kyari, to the FIRS Chairman at the wake of the revelations of financial discrepancies at FIRS, totally betrays the complicity of the cabal in the Buhari Presidency.
The party added that the correspondence also further confirms that Nigeria and her economy have been in the strangulating grips of a corrupt cabal, who has evidently hijacked the statutory roles and responsibilities of agencies of government, leading to the crippling of our system in the last four years of President Muhammadu Buhari’s misrule.
The PDP described as appalling that the Buhari Presidency has allowed its cabal a field day to loot the country’s common patrimony, leading to the crushing economic hardship in the land, which is now worsening, with the anti-people ban on FOREX for food by the Buhari administration.
The party further stated that the stealing of Nigeria’s taxes by APC agents has brought so much anguish to Nigerians, who suffer the brunt of collapsed infrastructure, decay of social amenities and a crippled national economy under President Buhari.
The PDP said it therefore urges the National Assembly to come to the rescue by holding a public inquest into the handling of taxes collected by the FIRS in the last four years, take urgent steps to recover the stolen funds and channel such to projects that have direct bearing on the welfare of Nigerians.