By Tony Adibe
Former Director General of Voice of Nigeria (VON), Mr Osita Okechukwu, has described President Bola Tinubu’s anti-graft war as Hope Renewal and identification with Nigerian masses nationwide.
Okechukwu, a Chieftain of All Progressives Congress (APC), said this at Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu on Sunday while reacting to the Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) recent interrogation of utilisation of Foreign Exchange allocated for industrialisation.
He urged President Tinubu to “bail-us-out” from the economic stranglehold of one per cent Class of deep pockets who over the years mangled the petro-dollars allocated to them for industrial development, hence failed to lift millions out of poverty. Okechukwu, who agreed that the nation was in dire need of bailing the citizens out from the stranglehold of the one per cent Class, noted that the one per cent Class had been feeding fat on the sordid-forex market.
He said, “it is courageous for President Tinubu whom I rank among the rich class, to evoke the ageless Amilcar Cabral thesis of Class Suicide, albeit being a member. The President is well heeled to wage this Herculean Anti-Graft-War.”
He said this would amount to identification with the collective interest of masses nationwide; as most of us hold the earnest view that we need to recover more monies, as is not only Gen. Sani Abacha that stashed our monies abroad.
He said: “When one learnt that the Ola Olukoyede-led EFCC raided the Dangote Headquarters and other big wig firms, it is with nostalgia that one recalled the famous pledge at Independence Thanksgiving Service, National Ecumenical Christian Center Abuja, made by our dear First Lady, Sen. Remi Tinubu.
“Sen. Remi Tinubu clearly said that – Nigeria’s wealth is the Commonwealth of all, it belongs to everyone. God has blessed my family, we don’t need the wealth of Nigeria to survive but to do the right thing and I promise you on this Alta, that with your help (and) with the help of God, we will set this nation on the right path.”
Okechukwu said that one prays that President Tinubu combs all corners in consortia with Femi Falana’s red dossier, so as to reduce our debt burden and revamp our economy.
“This renewed anti-graft-war is the surest way and means of avoiding more gruesome economic recession, exodus of our doctors and nurses and erasing the paradox that Nigeria, the country that produced the Richest African is the World Poverty Capital,” he said.
He emphasised that if President Tinubu maintains this anti-graft-war momentum, it would be pure Hope Renewal and Nigeria will be one of those history will record as nations where change emanated from unexpected quarters. He appealed to Nigerians to give the President the much-needed support to pull through the anti-graft-war and implement Section 16(2)(c) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
He noted that this section cautioned that, “The economic system is not operated in such a manner as to permit the concentration of wealth or the means of production and exchange in the hands of few individuals or of groups.”
