Members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC) prior to the 2015 elections have become a liability to the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari and are bringing down the APC, according to the Special Assistant to the President on Social Media, Lauretta Onochie.

She also appealed to Nigerians to cooperate with the government in ensuring that its ongoing war against corruption achieved great success.

The Presidential aide (popularly called Ada Anioma), who spoke on Tuesday at the 2nd Annual International Conference of the Progressive Solidarity Forum (PSF), said the PDP defectors constituted over 50 per cent in the present administration and could be found in almost every sector.

According to her, these defectors were a bad influence to youths in the country, whom they had succeeded in making their organs of transmitting hate speeches, and raining down abusive words and insults on the policies of the government to discredit its work against corruption.

Onochie said: “People will say how do I cope with all the abuses, curses and excitement of the social media. Many of our youths do not understand what they are doing. They have never known freedom. So we raise young people who are ignorant, who are timid and afraid of challenges and when their rights are trampled on, they are afraid of challenging it.

“That brings me to those in this government who are here to serve themselves, those that Colonel Hameed Ali, the Controller General of Customs, called PDP. He said that there are about 50 percent of them in this government, but I say no they are more than 50 percent.

“They are everywhere. They are in the presidency, they are in the national assembly. You can find them in the judiciary, they are in the law enforcement agencies, they serve their personal interests, they encourage our unsuspecting youths to be their foot soldiers on the social media to abuse and curse people, while their own children are sipping tea in America, in England or elsewhere. They are a bad example to our youngsters on social media."

The President’s aide, who lamented that Nigerian youths were being born and mentored in a corrupt system over ran by strong taste to acquire luxury and ostentatious goods, houses, and accumulation of stolen cash, noted that the teeming population of youths in the country were in need of good models.

While lamenting that the law enforcement agencies had failed in addressing the high rate of crime in the country, especially the perpetrators of corruption, she urged the citizenry to join hands with President Buhari to win the war against corruption and indiscipline.

Onochie said: “Laws are meant to follow the smell of crime. If crimes are being committed and these laws are not following them, then it means that somebody is not doing his job. Those who are in charge of enforcing the laws, many of them are not doing their jobs.

“The Inspector General of Police is just one man just as President Buhari is just one man. The onus lies on each and everyone of us to come together to challenge corruption where we find it. We need to say no to corruption and indiscipline. Corruption is everywhere, it stinks and unless we all begin to fight it and join the President to fight it, corruption will kill this nation.”

According to her, without the cooperation of Nigerians, government's relentless efforts in killing the menace of corruption in the country might be futile.

She regretted that some people were yet to key into the policy of government of the day, a development she noted was still responsible for corruption in the country in spite of the President’s efforts.

Onochie said: “Corruption is everywhere, it stinks; and unless we all begin to fight it and join the President to fight it, corruption will kill this nation.

“If anyone sits in his house or office and thinks that President Buhari alone is going to just wake up and go around our homes knocking on the doors to tell us ‘don’t do this, do this’, that person is wasting his or her time.

“We all need to come together to fight corruption and say no to corruption. Let us imbibe discipline and go to work early. Buhari is not going to come to your home to wake you up early to tell you that your office opens at 8am and that you should be there to do your job.

“Laws are meant to follow the smell of crimes. If crimes are being committed and these laws are not following them, it means that somebody is not doing his job somewhere.

“We have similar laws like the ones we have in the United Kingdom, but the problem is that those who are in charge of ensuring that the law takes its cause, those rather in charge of enforcing the laws are not doing their jobs.

“You don’t just go and change the whole Police, you don’t just go and change people in all the agencies, that’s not how it works. How they work is a reflection of our larger society.

“Corruption is everywhere. So all of us must come together and join hands with the President so that we can kill corruption before corruption kills our nation.

“The onus lies on each and every one of us to come together to challenge corruption when we find it. All of us, not just the Inspector-General, not just President Muhammadu Buhari, all of us need to come out and challenge corruption wherever we find it.

“If you go to a place where probably you are in a rush and somebody stops you and is trying to extort money from you, if you give him anything, it means you are also part of that corrupt system that we are talking about.

“And because you are in a position and you get job for only people who are in your area, not minding merit but what I can call ‘my brother, my sister’, that is nepotism and that is also part of corruption. So it’s a big issue in this our country.”

Earlier, the Grand Patron PSF, Dr. Ibrahim Emokpaire had said that the essence of the annual conference was to ensure that the institutions saddled with the responsibility of sustaining the anticorruption crusade, live beyond the existence of the Buhari-led government.

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