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.
According to Punch, 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.”
It was 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 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.
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