The Peoples Democratic Party has dismissed as spurious and irresponsible claims by a member of the party, Mr Kassim Afegbua, that the Uche Secondus-led National Working Committee, allegedly mismanaged N10bn.
Afegbua, had in a petition submitted to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission as well as the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences, alleged that the Secondus-led NWC could not account for N10bn generated from the sale of the party’s nomination forms.
At a press conference in Abuja, on Monday, the PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, said Afegbua’s petition was spurious.
Ologbondiyan said, “The attention of the PDP has been drawn to a spurious and irresponsible allegation by one Kassim Afegbua, upon which he claimed to have petitioned the EFCC and ICPC, asking that the leadership of the party account for an alleged sum of N10bn.
“According to this Afegbua, the said sum was allegedly realized from the sale of “forms in 2019”.
“While the PDP, our leaders and members are aware that there is no truth in the allegation.”
“The PDP did not raise Afegbua’s fictitious sum of N10bn as alleged by him. For the avoidance of doubt, the PDP generated the sum of N4.6bn and raised a budget for its expenditure, in line with all known financial regulations of our party.”
Ologbondiyan further explained that, the budget was approved by the relevant organs of the party.
He also said, “As a law-abiding political party that respects the doctrine of rule of law and transparency, the budget was presented to the National Executive Committee where it also received a final approval.
“Moreover, the PDP has no account under the name or guise of Afegbua’s ghostly Morufu Nigeria Limited. Having said that, as a political party under whose administration the EFCC and the ICPC were formulated and established, our party strictly adheres to best practices of transparency, accountability and probity in all issues including our financial administration.
“In addition, our party has since submitted the audited account of its financial expenditures to the INEC for 2019, in line with statutory requirements of the law.”
