The Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership, CACOL, has called on former First Lady, Patience Jonathan to come clean on the issue of her alleged corrupt enrichment.
CACOL made the call while lambasting a group of Niger Delta women who staged a solidarity march for Patience in Port-Harcourt yesterday.
The march involved hundreds of women in the state, who marched to the Rivers State Government house and was led by one Mrs. Eunice Igwe over what they referred to as constant harassment of the former first lady.
In a press release signed by CACOL’s Executive Chairman, Debo Adeniran, the group insisted that the former First Lady must tell Nigerians and the entire world how she gathered her wealth.
CACOL said, “We as a centre that is totally opposed to corruption at any level of government and by any government official, no matter how highly placed or influential have always challenged the former first lady to come clean on the issue of her alleged corrupt enrichment.
“She owes Nigerians and the entire civilized world an explanation on: How she was able to build a hotel in Yenogoa, worth over N10b; how she earned over $20m and several other huge sums of money found in different bank accounts linked to her. Her explanation is necessary because we can recall that she was just a career civil servant under the Bayelsa state government while her husband held sway as the nation’s President.
“CACOL’s stand remains that for Corruption to be finally uprooted from our national life, no effort must be spared in the bid to recoup stolen wealth that has left most Nigerians pauperized and frustrated, no matter whose ox is gored. It is for this reason we are not only decrying a situation whereby those who siphoned our commonwealth directly or through proxy would arrange a rented crowd or blackmail the nation by calling on the Presidency and the International community to intervene or leash the EFCC from carrying the fight against corruption to its logical conclusion.
“The CACOL boss further stated: “Rather than appealing to sheer emotion and undue sentiment that gives the impression that since over 70% of the nation’s revenue comes from oil-most of which is obviously still derivable from the Niger Delta area- any indigene of the region should be free to steal in power, the correct approach should be to chastise their own for not living up to integrity standards by doing incalculable damage to the nation’s economy through entrenchment of a looting culture.
“The women solidarity marchers should also endeavor to cite other former first lady’s involved in verifiable cases of corruption which the anti-graft agencies have treated as sacred cows, to prove their allegation of witch-hunting against Mrs. Jonathan. Only by so doing would they prove to the entire world that they deserve being given any serious attention.”