The All Progressives Congress (APC) has urged President Goodluck Jonathan to come clean on the circumstances surrounding the 9.3 million US dollars that was impounded in South Africa, which has become the latest in a series of global ridicule to which the scandal-prone Jonathan administration has subjected Nigeria and her people.
In a statement issued in Abuja on Thursday by its National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed, the party also called on the National Assembly to launch an urgent investigation into the issue, saying the silence of the peoples’ representatives on the issue is deafening, unfathomable and unacceptable.
It said there is no doubt that the President is at the centre of the whole issue, considering the presidential treatment given to the plane and its cargo, since the plane departed from the Presidential wing of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja, away from the reach of the Nigerian Customs Service which could not therefore have cleared the plane and its passengers.
“It is absolutely urgent for President Jonathan to clear the air on this alleged off-the-shelf equipment or arms purchase, which runs against all known protocol for such purchases anywhere in the world. Military equipment and weapons are not bean cakes to be purchased by the road side. There are globally-acceptable protocols for such purchases by governments, otherwise what differentiates a government from an insurgent group that is shopping for arms?
