Action Congress of Nigeria on Thursday described the “good governance tour’’ led by the Information Minister, Labaran Maku, as a fraud.
The ACN, therefore, called for the immediate halt of the tour, demanding that those behind it must account for the public funds they had collected.
In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed, the party also commended Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole for rejecting a proposal from the minister asking the state government to bankroll the tour of the state.
According to the ACN, the tour is an illegality because it distorts the nation’s constitution and gives the impression that the Federal Government is a supervisor of the various states
The party said, “Under our federalism, no state is subject to any control from the Federal Government, and no governor is mandated to report to the President. To now have a team assembled by the Federal Government inspecting the projects being carried out by the various states is not only fraudulent and illegal, but amounts to a blatant waste of public funds. It is a carryover from the days of military rule under which Nigeria was a unitary state.
“It is also a case of double jeopardy for the states, whose projects are made to look like they are being executed by the Federal Government, while at the same time they (states) are being made to pay for the meaningless tour.
“We say, unequivocally, that this tour fits into other fraudulent schemes concocted by this Federal Government to swindle the people, enrich a few and pad its war chest for the 2015 elections, and we are talking here of SURE-P as well as the oil subsidy and the pension fund scam. This jamboree must end today”
The party, which demanded an explanation of the Federal Government’s financial involvement in the exercise, asked to know why states were required to contribute money for the tour.
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