So what do you want to do now Leave the country on the next plane

Obj is gone by May 29th, Atiku is a GONER by May 29th. What is the point of this arguement

Anyway here is BBC updates, i can't wait to see what NTA come up with by 9 p.m.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6479579.stm

The Moral of the story being;

"The Senate refused to discuss the report before elections, leading the committee to resign. BBC reporters in Nigeria say much of the political significance of the report will be lost once President Obasanjo stands down in May."

By not disshing appropriate sactions against these top civil servants, it reinforces the thinking that politicans will loot and go scot free. Yar'dua contiues the looting.

What are you talking about now? What has Yar'dua got to do with this? This is between OBJ, Atiku, and the Senate.

do you really think that Yar'dua and his cohorts will be any better? They are bound to follow the foot step of OBJ and ATIKU

Na wa oh

are you JESUS

So you have never commited an offence before, (you never give police 20 bucks before in your life )

Someone hasn't taken over and you are already wishing him evil, saying he will loot the Nation, Will ANGELS come down from heaven and rule us.

What has Yar'dua done in his state to rule Nigeria? Even Chris Ngige performed better than him. He has kidney problem and has not thought it wise to build a hospital that will cater to his medical need. He is a governor with the lowest number of JAMB applicants. may be he does not like education. WE are always praising mediocrity.

The main problem I have with ppl is double standard. If the senate report had indicted Atiku only everybody would be very happy and commend them for a job well done but for the fact that they mentioned an angel we would describe them as insincere. If a judge vindicates Atiku we would condemn the judiciary but if on convict Atiku we (McKren) would be the first to post it online can we be unbiased in our views?

Imagine Twinstaiye said this is the best NEPA can be How ridiculous!! If you live in Naija you wold agree that this is the worst Electricity situation in this country. Even said nobody can do better than OBJ oh Gosh and later he would go ahead to blame sabotage these are just excuses for failure giving excuses after 8 years rule.

Two ppl misappropriated public funds one should be condemned and one should be left alone??

The senate was very unambiguous in indicting the TWO of them

This administration that had it's minister of Justice assasinated and after 5 years no clue no solution Security at it's lowest, power supply worse, Road network terrible, Niger Delta cant be worse, and these are the basic element for human existence. Security and infrastructures despite making a fortune from oil prices and we come here to say the country is not easy to govern but the money is easy to steal.
Atiku is corrupt and is not fit to rule but not only Atiku we have lots of Atiku in this country e.g Atiku's boss, Andy Uba, Tony Anenih, Alao-Akala, Adedibu, Alams, Ibori, Igbinedion but to mention a few

Gbooza !!! dayokanu.

Its good for someone to commit a crime and go scotfree , while its a crime to hang another man for the same crime. What happened to leadership by example? If OBJ is not held accountable for all the mis steps of his administration, who is going to be help accountable? may be my MAMA. I really dont know why people think that OBJ is the greatest thing that has ever happened to us. May be because he squandered a lot of opportunities.

The main problem I have with people is double standard. If the senate report had indicted Atiku only everybody would be very happy and commend them for a job well done but for the fact that they mentioned an angel we would describe them as insincere. If a judge vindicates Atiku we would condemn the judiciary but if on convict Atiku we (McKren) would be the first to post it online can we be unbiased in our views?

Such a great advice coming from an unbiased commentator

I know what you represent so there is no point  criticizing Atiku to make your post attractive.

The senate was very unambiguous in indicting the TWO of them

I have never said there is anything wrong in indicting both men, but penalties have to be commensurate to offence. Road traffic offence and Murder are both a case of breaking the law but they simply cant attract the same penalty.
It does not matter how much gramma you are able to speak but there is no where else in the world where a Government official who used Govt money meant for a particular project to execute another govt project will be treated as a govt official who used govt money to pursue private bussiness.

@McKren

Stop playing with semantics, corruption is corruption. They both used their positions for private INTERESTS. Whether it led to private gains or not is incosequential, the main point is that they used the funds for what it was not meant for.

Donzman:

@McKren

Stop playing with semantics, corruption is corruption. They both used their positions for private INTERESTS.

Actually no they didn't. One (Atiku) used for private interests including money budgeted for government projects. The other (OBJ) used some money for Government projects including the galaxy backbone.

The starter of this thread is biased against the president. He did wrong, but it was autocracy and not corruption.

Interesting.

http://www.guardiannewsngr.com/news/article20

PRESIDENT Olusegun Obasanjo's political adviser, Chief Akin Oshintokun, yesterday raised fresh posers for Vice President Atiku Abubakar and the Umar Tsauri-led senate Review Committee on the Petroleum Technology Development Fund, picking holes in the report.

He raised the questions in a statement in which he also wondered why the review panel's dissenting minority opinion of one of its members, Senator Akin Olasunkanmi, did not lead to the constitution of another committee by the Senate to re-examine the Tsauri team's submissions as was done with regard to the Ndoma-Egba committee.

Oshuntokun's statement reads: "The contrived controversy that resulted in the establishment of the Umar Tsauri-led Senate Review Committee was sparked off by the so-called dissenting report of Senator Titus Olupitan. (It is noteworthy that Senate President Ken Nnamani remarked the wrongness of Olupitan's membership of the Senate Adhoc committee on Petroleum Technology Development Fund, PTDF, in view of revelations of his vested partisan interest in the investigations).

Now that a member of the five-man review panel, Senator Akin Olasunkanmi, has equally protested the review report and tendered a dissenting report, will the Senate constitute another review panel to review the Tsauri panel report? This is the logic of the acceptance of the politicization of the Ndoma-Egba committee which resulted in the empanelling of the wholly superfluous Tsauri Review panel.

"To underline, for instance, its ulterior motive of minimizing Vice President Atiku Abubakar's guilt and indictment, the Tsauri panel reasoned as follows: 'The committee finds that in the case of the additional approval of $20 million on 14th October, 2003, the then Executive Secretary, Hamisu Abubakar, misrepresented the facts and wrongfully obtained approval from His Excellency, the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria."

Oshuntokun went on: How did the Committee arrive at this curious conclusion? Where did the Vice President make the claim that Hamisu Abubakar misrepresented the facts and wrongfully obtained approval from his excellency? Or was it the Executive Secretary who admitted, from hiding, that he committed such a grievous offence?

If the Vice President claimed he acted on the basis of misrepresentation then he would have to reconcile this claim with the fact of his knowledge and approval that the PTDF funds are kept as fixed deposits unutilized for the projects it was meant to execute. If the Vice President knows that the funds are kept in fixed deposit accounts, how can he claim to be in ignorance of the lie in Hamisu Abubakar's request for additional $20 million for the execution of on going projects?

"Certainly, anybody who knows that the funds meant for execution of projects have been otherwise committed as Bank placements; will also know that no projects were being executed with the funds. Yet the Vice President pretended as if he did not know and the Tsauri committee would also have us believe the pretence.

The statement further states: "According to the Committee's own findings, On the 14th of October 2003 the Executive Secretary wrote and got the approval of the Vice President as follows " In the course of execution of the projects, we observed the need to achieve uniformity and complete spread of the projects. These needs have consequently exposed some funding gaps which have to be filled through an urgent supplementary release.' The same Committee noted that'It is a fact that $125 million was not utilized for the execution of any of the projects mentioned above'.

If the Vice President knows that these funds have been placed as term deposits how would he then not know that no projects were being executed as fraudulently claimed by the Executive Secretary? How can the Tsauri Committee then advocate that Hamisu Abubakar misrepresented the facts and wrongfully obtained approval from his excellency when his excellency knows that the funds meant for project execution had been committed as bank placements?"

Oshuntokun alleged that to "further confirm his being privy to Hamisu Abubakar's fraud, the Vice President had on another occasion defended the non execution of the projects as attributable to the time lapse arising from the fulfillment of due process!"

"Discerning observers can now see how the Tsauri Committee has held itself to ridicule in the thinly disguised effort to connive in deceiving and confusing the Public. Nobody doubts the fact that Vice President Abubakar and his cohorts have proved extremely disingenuous and clever in deliberately beclouding issues and engaging in sundry evasion manoeuvres. Nobody expects that corrupt people will not be clever and even persuasive in covering their tracks and explaining away, through all manners of subterfuge, their misdeeds."

Equally interesting.

http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=73886

Indictment of both President Olusegun Obasanjo and Vice President Atiku Abubakar by the Senate Review Committee on the PTDF scandal has continued to elicit reactions from Nigerians with Lagos lawyer, Mr Femi Falana, enjoining Atiku to resign.
Falana, who spoke with newsmen in Ibadan at the weekend, said the indictment was enough signal on Atiku that he is on a wild goose chase as far as the April election was concerned.
The radical lawyer was irked by the admission of guilt by the Vice President and his advise to Obasanjo to admit guilt.
"What Mr Vice President is saying is clear. That I am a thief and that my boss should also own up. That admission is enough for him to resign and also quit the presidential race," Falana said.

God help us.

Seun:

The starter of this thread is biased against the president. He did wrong, but it was autocracy and not corruption.

It IS Corruption, corruption does not have to benefit you personally, as long you have diverted public funds to fulfill your own interest as opposed to that of the public, it is corruption.

@All the Blind OBJ Supporters

I wonder how you can hold the report with one hand, asking Atiku to resign because he was indicted. Whilst on the other hand, you're saying the report is trash and that OBJ is innocent. You can't have it both ways!

It IS Corruption, corruption does not have to benefit you personally, as long you have diverted public funds to fulfill your own interest as opposed to that of the public, it is corruption.

Even your own definition of corruption does not conform with what OBJ did.

You hypocrite, how can you bash Atiku based on a report and when it comes to OBJ you regard the report as trash?

What OBJ did was corruption, keep playing with semantics.

Donzman:

You hypocrite, how can you bash Atiku based on a report and when it comes to OBJ you regard the report as trash?

What OBJ did was corruption, keep playing with semantics.

Thanks for calling me a hypocrite but that wont change my argument

My dictionary defines corruption as

1. lack of integrity or honesty (especially susceptibility to bribery); use of a position of trust for dishonest gain [syn: corruptness] [ant:

While it is arguable whether what OBJ is accused of amounts to corruption as he did not benefit but used the money for public interest, it is noteworthy that this has not been the basis of my argument.
All I am saying is that for whatever you choose to call the diferent offences they simply should not attract the same penalty as the gravity of the both offence are not the same.

Lack of dishonesty or integrity - Strike 1, Mr. OBJ did not not sincerely state what the PTDF funds were used for initially.

Use of presidential position to divert public funds to another project without the public's consent. Strike 2!

Truth of the matter is that both OBJ and Atiku are corrupt individuals, the sooner we accept that, the better off we are.

Donzman:

Use of presidential position to divert public funds to another project without the public's consent. Strike 2!

Ok first of all to clear up any confusion. No funds were DIVERTED by the president. That is what Atiku did. The issue with the president, as far as I know is that both review committees say that the projects undertaken with the PTDF money are not covered under the PTDF Act. I should mention that the president disagrees with that view but, that's another story.
The difference between the committees is that they differ on what sort of punishment should be handed out.