Olu Falae, national chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), says he and his party are not returning any money to anybody. Falae, who was earlier accused of collecting N100 million from Sambo Dasuki, former national security adviser (NSA), admitted that he collected the money, but from Tony Anenih of the PDP and not Dasuki.
Speaking through Abdul Isaiq, the SDP national publicity secretary, Falae insisted that his party did not get a dime from the arms fund, but from the PDP for electoral alliance. “In terms of refund of money, I want to say here that those people who are refunding money are those who got their money directly from the arms deal fund,” he said.
“Our fund did not come from the arms deal; our fund came from an electoral alliance with the PDP and we knew that the PDP had a fundraising committee that gathered billions of naira and PDP had been in government for 16 years. “So, with that, we knew that the PDP had the capacity to fund the alliance that was formed with them by the SDP.
You don’t postulate what you don’t have on the ground, you can’t build on a non-foundation. “We, as a political party, knew that the PDP was a capable hand in the electoral alliance which we entered with them. And we equally knew that the PDP had a fundraising, where it generated over N20 billion down.”
The party said it was left for Anenih to explain how he got the money given to them and not for them to refund anything of such. “So, whether the money came from Col. Sambo Dasuki or his office is what we don’t know and it is left for them to ask Chief Tony Anenih to explain. “We knew that the PDP had been ruling Nigeria for 16 years. So, this was the basis of our electoral alliance with them. “We can’t refund any money to anybody because the money we got as a party came because of the alliance we had with the PDP and we have the agreement note from this alliance.
“If it is possible that the money Chief Anenih gave us was from the arms deal, it is left for them to ask Chief Anenih to clarify. As far as we knew, we did not have any dealing with Dasuki. “Our office did not ever have anything to do with the office or person of the National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki.”
-Thecable
