DSO: Youth Council Accuses ICPC Of Sabotage
The National Youth Council of Nigeria has raised concerned about the way and manner the ICPC has unilaterally turned itself into a cog in the wheel of progress towards a regime of digital broadcasting in Nigeria.
The Youth Council said it is rather curious that at a time the government of the day, under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari is working assiduously and investing huge sums of money to make the Nigerian economy sufficiently diversified to engage our teeming unemployed youth in productive endeavors, the commission is working in opposite direction.
This was contained in a statement jointly issued by Vice National President National Youth Council of Nigeria Comrade Adedamola Olugbode and National Publicity Secretary Amb Akoshile Muktar on Friday after an emergency meeting of the council held on Thursday.
In the statement forwarded to Solacebase, the Council said the matter under discussion, being the ongoing prosecution of the Director-General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) Ishaq Moddibo Kawu and the Chairman of Pinnacle Communications Limited, Lucky Omoluwa over an alleged diversion of funds.
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According to the statement,’’ that the ICPC chose to go to the media to conduct a showy trial even before approaching a competent court is the first case in point that buttresses our position. That the ICPC would announce to the nation that the Minister of Information, who had given approval for the money to be disbursed to Pinnacle Communications, would be serving as prosecution witness because he signed the approval in error would be laughable if scarce government resources weren’t being expended on this exercise, not to talk of the cost to the nation in investments from the DSO being stalled.’’
It said the Digital Switch Over is one such programme that the government made a priority from very early in its first tenure, due to the capacity of the broadcasting industry to provide employment for our populace over the long-term but rather curiously that an agency of government would be working at cross purposes to the stated objective of the government, against the greater good of the Nigerian people.
The Youth Council there urged the ICPC to discontinue forthwith the jamboree prosecution and persecution of the chairman of Pinnacle Communications and the DG of NBC.
It demanded ICPC apologize to Nigerians over their conduct during the course of this matter.
It similarly called on the Presidency to set up an independent panel of inquiry to investigate this matter and to unmask the people behind this well-orchestrated plot to sabotage Nigeria, by capitalizing on President Buhari’s war on corruption to mask their evil intentions.
