Yemi Adedeji, Abuja
THE Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has accused President Muhammadu Buhari of aiding corruption with the secret release of over N16.6 billion Paris Club fund to Osun State government.
The party said it was reprehensible that President Buhari, whose handlers have been parading as ‘Mr. Integrity’, could approve such dark scheme to convert funds meant for payment of several months’ arrears of workers’ salaries to bribe electoral officers and pay thugs to foist a rejected leadership on an already impoverished people.
The opposition party said it had been at alert regarding the movement of these funds and other secret deals between the APC and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and would not hesitate to expose the INEC officials, including a close relation of the President, who has been the arrow head of plots to rig elections for the APC.
The National Publicity Secretary of PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan in a statement issued in Abuja said, “PDP’s investigation has revealed that the N16.67bn is to be diverted as bribe to INEC officials, compromised international observers as well as pay hoodlum contracted by the All Progressives Congress (APC) in its desperate plot to rig the September 22, 2018 Osun Governorship elections.”
He stated: “Further investigation reveals that bulk of the money has already been penciled for sharing to APC leaders, especially at the national level, as bribe, to short-circuit the system to favour President Buhari’s relection bid, while the people of Osun continue to suffer deprivation.”
“The PDP has been further made aware of how part of the fund will be moved to private company accounts as well as various hidden locations for the compromised INEC officials and APC leaders.”
Ologbondiyan noted that these revelations had clearly shown that the Buhari Presidency and the APC care less about the welfare of Nigerians and have completely sold themselves to sleazes and corruption for selfish gains.
The opposition party therefore called on the people of Osun State, particularly the workers to rise up and reject this direct assault on their rights, sensibilities and survival as a people, by the APC, which have become notorious for corruption and subversion of rules.
“Nevertheless, in spite of these machinations, the PDP wants the APC to know that it has not retracted the resolve to contend with it head to head, in all ramifications and magnitude, to discomfit and dismantle its rigging machinery, beginning with September 22, 2018 Osun state governorship election”” it said.
Meanwhile, a gubernatorial aspirant from Nassarawa state, who is seeking to contest on the platform of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Phillip Gyunka, has canvassed for state police as a panacea to the growing rate of insecurity in the country.
He also lamented that greed caused the party to lose the state in 2011 and 2015, stressing that the mistake should be avoided this time around.
Gyunka, a senator representing Nassarawa north in the senate made this known yesterday in Abuja after submitting his nomination form at the PDP headquarters in Abuja.
He kicked against the idea of the party presenting a consensus candidate, saying everyone should be giving a level play ground.
According to him, “If we can allow every state to protect, by providing the security- the state police, I think I embrace that idea. In this nation today, you see people killing, you still here reports and when you are complaining, nothing is happening, this will can resolve into prayer, but we must take action.”
Continuing he noted; “In 2011 as you said greed was the centre focus issue. Those that claimed to have been the fathers and the founders of PDP were deceived, when you lose something we should embraced the spirit of sportsmanship. They were deceived and then they diverted the vote of PDP and gave it to CPC under the agreement that the CPC governor is going to serve only but one term. How possible could you think it would have been.
“In 2015, same happened, So, greed should be avoided.”
Also, Senator Yakubu Lado said that the All Progressive Congress (APC) administration in Katsina state has failed and has vowed to retrieve it and set it back on the path of progress and prosperity.
Speaking to journalists at the weekend in Abuja moments after submitting his expression of interest and nomination forms to vie for the governorship ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), he said he was on a mission to rescue the state from the lack of direction the ruling party has subjected the it to in the last three and half years.
He said: “APC has failed. It has not only failed but it has set back Katsina state over several decades. Under the previous PDP government in Katsina, it was a progressive state with emphasis on human capital development and infrastructure.
“But look at what we have today. The government of APC has eroded all the gains of the last administrations and replaced them with hunger and starvation.”