Bailout funds: CD threatens street protects if Buhari fails to probe govs

CAMPAIGN for Democracy (CD), on Saturday, in Lagos, threatened to return to street protests should President Muhammadu Buhari failed to probe state governors over the bailout funds given to them.

The funds, running into billions of naira, it would be recalled, were given to them to pay workers’ salaries which had gone into several months in arrears in some states.

CD also insisted that Buhari should not fail to implement reports on the suspended Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Alhaji Babachir Lawal, concerning the grass cutting contract scam.

CD President, Comrade Abdul Usman Bako, issued this threat, while addressing newsmen after the conclusion of the body’s congress that also ratified the expulsion of the its secretary-general, Goodluck Obi, based on allegations of working against CD’s interest and a new secretary-general, Ifeanyi Odili, was elected.

According to CD, both the panel headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and a Senate committee had reports already indicting the SGF.

Bako, who admitted that the CD had democratised its operations by adopting a more modern strategy of engaging the government based on the fact that Nigeria was now under a democratic rule, vowed that it would pour into the streets in protests if things did not improve and the government failed to take necessary action against the governors in respect of the bailout funds and the embattled Lawal.

“On the issue of bailout, yes, I think we have more modern strategy of engaging government now than just going on street procession the way it used to be because then, the military, very sorry to use these words, were adamant and very stubborn in giving us what we needed. That was why we were trying to match them shoe for shoe.

“But today, we are into democracy, so the best way of doing things is by lobbying the authority that be, by conscientising the citizens just by the way we are doing things democratically to get it right, the way it should be, not by marching force with force. But if it goes to the extent of we coming on the streets to say ‘enough is enough,’ we would do it.

“We want to see what these monies being given out as bailouts are being used for,” the CD president stated.

On the issue of the Vice President heading a panel, “We were in Abuja last week where we briefed the media. We came out to say Mr. President, it is either you act now or you quit. That is our position now. We made mention of the SGF saga, we were very, very emphatic telling the president this.”