By Fadhlillah Abdallah
The opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has alleged that the funds being used by individual politicians to purchase the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential nomination forms were being withdrawn from Ministries, Agencies and Parastatals (MDAs) by serving appointees of President Muhammadu Buhari.
A statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba on Tuesday, also accused the Presidency of allegedly allowing the mass looting of public funds to corruptly create a war chest for the APC in the 2023 general elections.
“Our party has information of how public funds are being withdrawn from Ministries, Agencies and Parastatals of government and diverted to people who have no verifiable means of livelihood to purchase APC’s Presidential Nomination and Expression of Interest forms for individuals without any electoral value and who cannot even win local government elections.
“We have intelligence on how public funds are pulled out of government Agencies in a surreptitious design perfected by an APC leader in connivance with certain individuals in positions of authority close to top persons in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
“Nigerians will recall that the PDP had earlier alerted on how the CBN under Mr Godwin Emefiele as CBN Governor has been turned into the finance department of the APC where APC leaders fraudulently access public funds through nebulous subsidies, shady intervention programmes and discriminatory exchange policies which perpetuate illegal arbitrage system.
“The rejected APC has resorted to this underhand method to corruptly rake in billions of naira from the public treasury without consideration for the welfare of Nigerians,” the PDP alleged.
According to the PDP, the APC is diverting public funds having realised that its leaders cannot make huge donations to the party coffers as they will be violating the limits of contribution to political parties as stipulated by law and regulation.
It described as regrettable that the APC has extended their alleged corruption to the country’s electoral process not minding the consequential effect on the democratic system.
The party called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Accountant General of the Federation as well as the Auditor General of the Federation, to commence investigation and monitor the movement of funds in MDAs to protect Nigeria’s treasury from the APC ahead of the 2023 general elections.
