PDP can’t understand why Buhari is silent as Akpabio gets dragged for sexual harassment

Jude Egbas 12:48 - 14 July 2020

Akpabio is one of the four senators, who will accompany President Buhari to China for the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation.

The PDP thinks the presidency is quiet because it approves of Akpabio's alleged methods.

The opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) is calling on President Muhammadu Buhari and the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) to speak up on allegations of corruption, fraud, vandalism, sexual harassment, fetishness and abuse of power levelled against Niger Delta Minister Godswill Akpabio.

Former Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Joy Nunieh, says she had to slap Akpabio on one occasion as he coerced her to sleep with him.

“I am the only Nigerian woman...the only Ogoni woman that has slapped him. I slapped him because of his plan B. He wanted me to take a blood oath of secrecy in Abuja,” Nunieh said.

Joy Nunieh (R) and Akpabio (L) on duty (SaharaReporters)

“Yes, I am accusing him of sexual harassment. Akpabio is most interested in my love life. Did he want to be my seventh husband? That’s why Akpabio told the world that I am temperamental. You know why Akpabio will tell the world that I am temperamental? Because of that incident where I slapped him,” she added.

In a statement issued by its spokesperson, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP said the “silence and inaction by the Buhari presidency and the APC since the uncovering of the fraud in the NDDC signposts complicity at the highest levels as well as validates the public stance that treasury looting and cover-up for corrupt persons are normal official statecraft and manifesto of the APC and the Buhari administration.”

The party added that: “Nigerians are still in a state of shock over reports of how the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Akpabio, allegedly bullied officials to pillage the commission’s foreign currency account;

"How the laid down procedures of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) are allegedly circumvented to siphon unapproved budgets as well as how innocent workers and federal legislators, who are averse to corrupt practices, were victimized, implicated and even harassed with fetish practices.

PDP National Publicity Secretary, Mr Kola Ologbondiyan (The Herald)

“The allegation by the former NDDC MD that a certain NDDC top notch said he can kill if Senator Akpabio asks him to do so, shows the level of recklessness and the victimization in MDAs under the APC rule.

“More distressing is that the Buhari presidency and the APC have remained silent even when the embattled minister has not provided any concrete defence to the allegations beyond personal attacks on the whistle-blowers.”

The NDDC has been mired in corruption since it was established by former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2000 to develop an oil rich but impoverished Niger Delta region.