The National Chairman of the All
Progressives Congress (APC), Adams Oshiomhole, has dismissed allegations that
he collected bribes of about $80 million to manipulate the outcome of the party
primaries in some states and FCT.
The party chairman spoke Friday
night after meeting President Muhammadu Buhari.
Some aggrieved aspirants are
accusing Mr Oshiohmole of collecting various sums in bribes to twist the
primaries.
Speculations are also gaining
currency that he was last week interrogated by the Department of State Service
(DSS) over the outcome of the recently conducted APC primaries.
An online media outfit which
allegedly accused the APC chairman of collecting about $80 million in bribes,
however, reported that Mr Oshiomhole had become a target after refusing
$500,000 bribe cash from one of the aggrieved APC governors.
It reported that the affected
governor had wanted the APC chairman to adopt his anointed governorship
candidate.
It was gathered that many
godfathers and governorship candidates were desperate for tickets but Mr
Oshiomhole stood his ground that he will not compromise party guidelines, it
further stated.
But, Mr Oshiomhole, who spoke to
State House correspondents after a closed door meeting with President Muhammadu
Buhari at the Presidential Villa, described the allegations of corruption
against him as reckless insinuation.
“No tree that will bear fruits that
will grow in Sahara desert and the fact the publisher of Saharareporters
himself is a presidential aspirant; we would soon find out the difference
between Sahara and its reporters, and a green forest and its reporters.
“The unfortunate thing here, however,
is that people, who specialise in libels they take advantage of our peculiar
judicial system.
“When I was a governor in Edo
state, they published all kinds of things against me. At a point I decided to
go to court and my lawyer told me that I have to be ready to enter the witness
box to make my case – whether I was ready to go through that humiliation.
“What is in the governorship?
Before I became the governor I entered the witness box and I know after being
governor I can still go back there one day. So I went there and I won the case.
They awarded damages in my favour.
“But by the time you want to
check the process of the guy who libeled you and so on, he sells himself
everything put together he could not compensate for by legal fee not to talk of
really mitigating my paying as a result of the judgment,’’ he said.
On the forthcoming campaign
programmes of the APC, Mr Oshiohmole revealed that the party’s campaign for the
2019 presidential election would focus on character and integrity of the key
candidates.
Mr Buhari is the APC presidential
candidate while the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is
presenting former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar as its candidate.
According to the party chairman,
the APC is fully ready to flag off the campaigns soon.
He said: “We are fully ready, we
have done with our primaries and filled our nominations.
“As you know, INEC still has a
window between now and first of January to deal with issues of substitution. As
of campaigns, we are ready.
“We are going to announce the
date and programme for our campaigns. My idea of kick-off will be the day we
will do our first presidential rally where Mr President as our candidate and
other candidates, party leaders will assemble in a venue that will be agreeable
to all of us.
“There will be two sets of
messages. One, on what we have done in the past, without failing to remind
people of where we were before, what we are going to do in the next four years,
and a couple of things we believe we will be doing differently.
“President Buhari if compared to
the rest of the candidates, there is no basis to compare day and night. The
real issue in this election is not going to be religion. It is not going to be
about ethnicity.
“Central to the issue and given
our past experience as a country, we know that what makes a difference is the
character, the issue of integrity of the candidates.’’
According to Mr Oshiomhole, the
campaign is going to be focusing on character and integrity of those who want
to govern the country.
(NAN)
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