The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has accused President Muhammadu Buhari of aiding corruption in the alleged secret release of over N16.6 billion Paris Club fund to Osun State.
PDP said a reaction to the report on Saturday that its investigation has shown that the N16.67 billion is to be diverted as a bribe to INEC officials, compromise international observers and pay hoodlums contracted by the All Progressives Congress APC in its alleged desperate plot to rig the September 22, 2018, Osun State Governorship election.
According to a statement issued in Abuja by Kola Ologbondiyan, its National Publicity Secretary, it is reprehensible that President Buhari, who it said his 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.
It said that further investigation showed to the party that the bulk of the money has already been prepared for sharing to APC leaders, especially at the national level, as a bribe, to short-circuit the system to favour President Buhari’s reeection bid, while the people of Osun State continue to suffer deprivation.
The PDP added that it had been further made aware of how part of the fund will be moved to private company accounts and various hidden locations for the compromised INEC officials and APC leaders.
The statement added: “Indeed, these revelations have 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 PDP, therefore, charged 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.
It said: “Moreover, the PDP has been at alert regarding the movement of these funds and other secret deals between the APC and INEC and will not hesitate to expose the INEC officials, including a close relation of the President, who has been the arrowhead of plots to rig elections for the APC.”
The party invited the world to note how President Buhari and the APC, who were huge beneficiaries of credible elections conducted by the PDP in 2015, are bent at destroying the nation’s hard-earned democracy, just because they have been rejected by Nigerians.
“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 the September 22, 2018, Osun state governorship election,” the statement said.
The PDP commended state governors, particularly a few in the APC, who have spoken out against this alleged sneaky act by the Buhari Presidency.
“Our party will continue to work with these patriotic individuals in the overall quest to free our nation from the shackles and misrule of the Buhari-led APC,” it said.
Nigerian Tribune
