The Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP ) has demanded the arrest and immediate prosecution of the Minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika.

A statement on Thursday by the spokesman for the PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan accused the Minister of using a non-existent national carrier to defraud the nation to the tune of N1.2 billion.

The government had on Wednesday announced the indefinite suspension of Nigeria Air, which was launched in London, United Kingdom, by the Minister in July

The party charged President Muhammadu Buhari to speak out on the matter, alleging that funds released for the moribund project were diverted to finance his 2019 re-election bid.

It described the indefinite suspension of the project as part of the “fraudulent script” by the Presidency, adding that the project never existed in the first place.

The statement said, “It would be recalled that the PDP had in July alerted the nation that the unveiling of a non existent national carrier was a huge scam designed to create an impression of achievement, as well as a conduit by corrupt All Progressives Congress (APC) leaders and the Buhari Presidency to siphon public funds for selfish purposes.

“Nigerians now know that the reason for the rush to London to ‘unveil’ mere drawings of airplanes, name, logo and imaginary routes of a non-existent fleet as our national carrier, without any structures, operational license, clear partnership agreements and no form of ground activity anywhere in our country.

“What the APC and the Buhari Presidency failed to understand is that lies, no matter how ornamented, always have their expiring dates. The truth may be suppressed for a while, but it always has a way of coming to light.

“It is now clear to the world that the Buhari administration is corrupt and lacks the capacity to productively engage against acts of corruption. This is the major reason our economy went into a recession and foreign investors have lost confidence in our nation”.

The main opposition party demanded that the N1.2 billion said to have been invested in the project be immediately recovered and directed to critical interventions in the aviation sector, including the unpaid pension owed to retired aviation workers.

The party counseled the APC and the Presidency to know that Nigerians could see through their alleged corruption and lies for which they will deal them a humiliating verdict at the polls, come 2019.

•Sourced from The Nation report