The Transition Monitoring Group has described as shameful and embarrassing the acquisition of two BMW 760LI cars by the Minister of Aviation, Princess Stella Oduah, for N225 million.
TMG equally described the amount purportedly spent on the cars by the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority as outrageous and ridiculous.
The group, in a statement by its Chairman, Comrade Ibrahim M. Zikirullahi, and Publicity Secretary, Chief Eddy Ezurike, said it is also reprehensible that President Goodluck Jonathan has not taken any firm action against Oduah.
Rather, it accused Jonathan of romancing and massaging the car scandal by appointing Oduah as a member of his advance team for his visit to Jerusalem.
The statement added: “Therefore, TMG is not at all surprised at the rash of response by the Minister to the purported “query” issued to her by the President. Given our governance system, it may well be the person issuing the query is the same person providing answers.
“In a decent society where value system is not relegated to the background, both the Minister and Director General of NCAA should have been suspended from their positions to enable unfettered and uninhibited investigation. However, from the response of the aviation Minister, it is palpably clear that relevant documents concerning the purchase of ludicrous BMW armored cars may have been destroyed and evidence invented to justify the unjustifiable.
“This action to say the least, contradicts the anti-corruption posture of President Goodluck Jonathan government. It is intolerable and deceitful for a Ministry struggling to overcome endless air mishaps on account of poor funding and mismanagement to be engaged in such frivolous transactions and financial misdemeanor.
“Thus it appears that as we approach the 2015 General Elections, the ruling class has deviced means of primitive acquisition of money and protective security with the sole purpose of rigging and buying votes at elections. TMG is strongly persuaded that the action of NCAA is not an isolated one, but a further manifestation of the rots and institutional wastes in the Nigerian governance system even as it regards the gifts of BMW armored cars as gratification. For us in TMG, we take the purchase of the BMW cars as preparation towards political campaign of the aviation Minister. This is one bitter truth that Stella Oduah and her Ministry of Aviation have failed to tell Nigerians. Today Nigeria’s economy continues to stagnate and the social crisis has continued to deepen.
“Therefore, TMG urges the anti-corruption agencies to quickly step in to investigate this financial and executive recklessness at the aviation sector. With the said huge sum of N255 million carefully plugged back into aviation industry, Nigeria may well have prepared to overcome many more years of nightmarish air mishaps.
“TMG believes that the best option for the Minister and others who planned and executed this obnoxious transaction is to resign without further delay and stop the waste of our scarce resources.”
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