President Goodluck Jonathan
|
|
Following
the defeat suffered by President Goodluck Jonathan and his party, the Peoples
Democratic Party, during the March 28 and April 11 elections, the President has
asked the party and government officials, who handled campaign funds, to refund
unspent monies, or those not judiciously expended, SUNDAY PUNCH can
authoritatively report.
Jonathan,
credible sources said, has also set up a committee of five to get those with
the funds to return them.
Sources
within the party and the government told our correspondents that Jonathan was
disturbed that despite giving campaign coordinators, ministers, special
advisers, close aides and friends, support groups and traditional rulers over
N2tr in cash, most of them could not deliver their polling booths and local
governments.
The
President was said to have been further irked by the results of an
investigation he ordered.
The
probe showed that some coordinators used campaign funds to buy very expensive
properties, especially in Abuja, and luxury cars.
Some
of the funds have also been traced to the bank accounts of senior party and
government officials, who were charged with the disbursement of funds to voters
and groups.
A
reliable source in the Presidency told our correspondents that one of the
President’s men, who recently admitted to a few close aides that it would be
difficult to retrieve all the funds, was bent on getting senior party and
government officials, who received funds to account for all monies collected.
The
source, who is a close associate of the President, said monies given to
traditional rulers in different parts of the country, for example, would not be
demanded, but added that the President was determined to get his ministers,
close aides and special advisers to make refunds.
He
said, “Some ministers did not get less than N20bn each. None of them can deny
it because this fact isn’t hidden within government circles. The only problem
with such monies is that there is no receipt to show that they collected money.
The sad part is that almost all of them performed woefully. Even in the states
where the PDP won, some ministers could not deliver 100,000 votes. They could
not mobilise their people to come out.
“The
President is not happy. They all went on property and car-shopping. This was
the most expensive election in the history of this country, yet there was no
result.
“The
sad part was that even after the President lost on March 28, more money was
given to all of them to make up for the dismal outing by winning their states
during the April 11 elections. But that turned out to be a bad decision because
apart from losing the governorship election, we didn’t perform well in the
other elections.
“They
must give an account of the money since they didn’t use it for the election.
The President is not particular about the funds spent on genuine campaign needs
like the hiring of jets, advertisements and the rest that also cost billions of
naira. His focus is on the individuals that collected billions to deliver their
states but couldn’t even win their polling booths.”
Our
correspondents gathered that apart from the N20bn given to some key ministers
and senior special advisers, especially in states where the PDP hoped to
capture from the opposition All Progressives Congress, some pro-Jonathan
support groups received about N16bn.
A
former legislator, who was to print five million recharge cards, T-shirts and
baseball caps, has also come under pressure to account for the billions she
received because only a few people got the items she was paid to produce.
Also,
a top female politician in Lagos, who got a contract to produce and supply
thousands of mobile phones with pro-Jonathan messages, was said to have
produced just a few and pocketed most of the funds.
It
was learnt that the funds Jonathan released were disbursed in three phases.
Some were released before the March 28 elections, others on the day of the
presidential election and more before the April 11 governorship and state House
of Assembly polls.
Already,
the committee of five has started asking some of the campaign coordinators and
ministers, who received a minimum of N20bn each, to give an account and also
refund residual funds where applicable.
However,
our correspondents learnt that most of the people, who received the funds had
not cooperated with the committee. While some have not been forthcoming, others
have simply ignored the committee.
Jonathan
is said to be particularly focusing on the South-West and northern states.
In
Lagos, a popular PDP chieftain, who lost in his polling booth, reportedly
received $50m in cash a few days before the governorship elections.
A
senior PDP party member, who spoke to one of our correspondents in Lagos over
the weekend, confirmed the cash splurge in Lagos.
The
source said, “Lagos was a show of shame. A few days to the governorship poll,
about $150m was received in cash by about five top campaign coordinators. But
they failed again, even more than we did in the presidential poll because we
lost some areas we won on March 28 to the APC on April 11. They were to share
this money to the local governments and the masses.
“Please
understand me, I am saying that the sum of $150m was just for the governorship
election in Lagos. We are not talking about the sums they got for the
presidential election. Only one out of the five people that shared the money
gave some of it to local government chairmen. This person disbursed about N2bn.
The rest of them sat on the money.
“The
coordinator, who collected the sum of $50m, later went to a Federal Government
agency and complained of not having enough funds for the election and got an
additional $20m. The story is the same in almost all the South-West especially
Oyo, Osun and the northern states. A female minister from the North, who got
the highest amount of funds for that region, lost her state in a shameful
manner.”
Confirming
that campaign directors in different parts of the country had been asked for an
audit, the PDP Campaign Director in Akwa Ibom, Mr. Idongesit Nkanga, said the
instruction was not new.
He
stated that the PDP’s campaign organisation in the state had concluded its
audit.
“It
is the normal thing. It is the right thing to do for transparency’s sake,” he
said.
Nkanga
said he would not be able to comment on the refund because he did not collect
money from anyone.
According
to him, the PDP’s campaign organisation in Akwa Ibom State received a letter
for an audit from the PDP campaign headquarters.
He
explained, “Because the letter emanated from the national headquarters of the
party, they were under obligation to submit the audit report about the
campaign’s expenditure to them.”
He
maintained that at the campaign headquarters, some of the information was
available, adding that he would not be able to give SUNDAY PUNCH accurate
details offhand to avoid possible conflict in the figures.
Asked
what sanctions would be meted out to defaulters, Nkanga said they might be
prosecuted.
However,
our correspondent reports that prosecution, while not impossible, may be
difficult as most of the monies disbursed were not receipted.
Contacted,
the national leadership of the ruling PDP said it did not know anything about
the money spent on its presidential campaign.
National
Publicity Secretary of the party, Mr. Olisa Metuh, stated this in an interview
with one of our correspondents in Abuja on Saturday.
Metuh
said only those put in charge of the funds were in a position to account for
the monies.
He
said, “The national leadership of the PDP is not aware of any campaign fund. We
were not part of it and therefore we can’t be asked to account for what we
didn’t know anything about.
“There
was a campaign committee and only the committee is in a position to account for
any fund.”
Efforts
made to speak with the Director-General of the PDP Presidential Campaign
Organisation, Sen. Ahmadu Ali, were unsuccessful.
Ali,
a former national chairman of the party, did not pick calls made to his phone
and also failed to respond to a text message sent to him.
Similarly,
efforts to get the Presidency’s reaction did not yield any result as calls made
to the telephone line of the presidential spokesman, Reuben Abati, as of
10.30pm, did not connect.
0 comments:
Post a Comment