THE Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has insisted that Dr Doyin Okupe, President Goodluck Jonathan's Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs, is not a fit and proper person to hold the position given his alleged past steeped in corruption and criminal conversion of state funds and warned the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) against any cover-up.In a statement issued in, Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, on Wednesday, by its national publicity secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party described as false and deliberately misleading a statement credited to the spokesman of the EFCC, Mr Wilson Uwujaaren, that he was not aware that Dr Okupe was under investigation, as it was on record that Dr Okupe was in the custody of the EFCC in Lagos for almost one month between July and August 2006, on account of a contract he obtained, this time from Imo State but which he failed to execute after collecting a hefty mobilisation fee.The party warned the EFCC and other relevant agencies, especially the presidency, not to attempt to falsify and obliterate records in order to give Dr Okupe a clean bill of health in relation to the allegations, as Dr Okupe's fraudulent activities were not limited to Benue and Imo states alone and were too well documented for any attempt at a cover up. The party further warned all those who knew how to bury dead bodies to remember those who also knew how to exhume them.The party reiterated its earlier position that retaining Dr Okupe as the administration's spokesman on public affairs was not just an insult to the collective integrity of all Nigerians but also flied in the face of the administration's flaunted commitment to fighting corruption.Meanwhile, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), South-West, has described as irresponsible and hypocritical ACN's call for Dr Okupe to be sacked as the Senior Special Assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan.The PDP's zonal publicity secretary, Honourable Kayode Babade, made this known in a release issued in Ibadan, on Wednesday.Babade, in the release, said: 'As we have maintained before, a party of fraudsters, certificate forgers, ex-convicts, perjurers and money launderers like the ACN does not have the required moral standing to talk on corruption or any crime in Nigeria.'The ACN must first fumigate its own house to get rid of grossly corrupt and criminal-minded elements in its fold before seeking to clean other people's houses.'The party maintained that it was laughable that the ACN, which kept silent over various allegations of financial scams against of the speaker of Lagos State House of Assembly, Mr Adeyemi Ikuforiji, could be asking for the sack Dr Okupe over an unsubstantiated allegation of fraud.'Today, the speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Mr Adeyemi Ikuforiji, is standing trial for alleged stealing and laundering of N500 million. 'In spite of this, he still presides over the affairs of the assembly and the hypocrites in the ACN have not deemed it necessary to ask the speaker to resign or step aside until the conclusion of his criminal trial.'Is the loud mouth also unaware of the conviction of the House of Representatives Minority Leader, Mr Femi Gbajabiamila, by the Sureme Court of Georgia, United States of America, for defrauding his client of $25,000''What moral rights does a party whose leader in the House of Representatives is an ex-convict to call for the sack of anyone''Therefore, the call for the sack of Dr Okupe is irresponsible, hypocritical and nonsensical,' Babade said.
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