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| Prince Uche Secondus |
The leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday gave account of how the controversial N12 billion generated by the party during the last general elections was spent.
The money was the proceeds from sale of nomination and expression of interest forms from various elective office seekers across the federation.
At a briefing in Abuja, the party’s Acting National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus, said the actual amount was not N12 billion but a little over N11b.
According to him, “10 percent of the money went to the state chapters, five percent to the zonal chapters and another five percent to local government chapters of the party.
“Another 15 percent was expended on assignments by various party functionaries and the rest was used to fund our campaigns. We raised money and we used the money for elections. We don’t need to go into details”.
Protesting workers at the party secretariat have been at war with the Secondus-led National Working Committee (NWC) following the alleged embezzlement of the money, which they said was partly responsible for the poor outing of the PDP in the general election.
The NWC had threatened to sack half of the workers and reduce their pay by 50 per cent, a development that further infuriated the aggrieved workers.
Senate Minority Leader Godswill Akpabio, who led the PDP Senate caucus to the briefing, explained why the party must reduce the secretariat workers.
Akpabio said: “We can no longer run to the Villa for cash so we don’t have the wherewithal to maintain that large number of secretariat workers.
“The workers should understand that they are in a master-servant relationship in which you cannot force an unwilling master to keep a recalcitrant servant. We are definitely going to downsize”.
Akpabio and Secondus complained about what they described as “harassment and intimidation” of the party’s ex-governors and former ministers who served under the Goodluck Jonathan administration.
According to them, the Department of State Security (DSS) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) were singling out ex PDP public office holders for investigation.
They urged the anti grant and security agencies to prove that only ex-PDP public office holders were corrupt and that those that were elected under the All Progressives Congress (APC) were saints.
“We have been reading in the papers about corrupt practices in Rivers and Lagos State under the control of the APC. But the EFCC has not deemed it fit to invite the immediate past governors of these states,” Secondus said.
The party leaders also complained about what they termed the arrest and intimidation of electoral officials in Rivers, Akwa Inom and Abia states by the DSS, saying the trend was limited to states under the control of the PDP.
They cautioned the Federal Government against selective application of the law, saying the process must be seen to be holistic. Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
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