Former Secretary to the Government of the Federation and National Leader of the Social Democratic Party, Chief Olu Falae, has said the N100m he collected from a former Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party’s Board of Trustees, Chief Tony Anenih, was fully remitted to his party.
Falae, a former presidential candidate of the Alliance for Democracy, told SUNDAY PUNCH in an interview on Saturday that the SDP and the PDP has a written agreement on the endorsement of the latter’s presidential candidate in the 2015 election, former President Goodluck Jonathan.
He said, “The PDP’s Board of Trustees’ chairman came to me in Akure to seek our support. We gave him six conditions; that they should have zero tolerance for corruption, create job for the unemployed, fight insurgency and restore security in Nigeria, reduce recurrent expenditure to have money for capital development, etc; that if they (PDP) accept those conditions, we would support them.”
According to him, the former ruling party agreed to the terms orally.
Falae explained that he later wrote to Anenih, who wrote back to accept the conditions. “That was the basis for our cooperation to support their presidential candidate; that was the purpose for which the money was given,” he stated.
Part of the $2.1bn arms procurement fund allegedly diverted by former National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd.), was said to have been allegedly used to fund the electioneering of the PDP in the 2015 general elections.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission had traced the fund to the PDP, which also used part of the fund to mobilise other political parties to support President Goodluck Jonathan’s re-election bid.
The ex-Minister of Finance noted that both SDP and the PDP did not discuss money during the negotiation, while the conditions given were in the best interest of the country.
He said, “They realised that the SDP had no money; we had no government (post). He (Anenih) said without money, we would not be able to be effective. So, he sent us the money, which I passed on to the SDP and it was distributed to all the states (chapters) of the federation, while our people were instructed to campaign for their presidential candidate during the election. This was the story.”
When Falae was asked to confirm his alleged failure to remit all the money to the party, he said, “It is a lie. I am the chief fundraiser for the party and the money I (have) raised and remitted to the party is well over N200m.”
He pointed out that the party has its own bank account where money passes, while there were other executives of the party who knew about its finances.
“My integrity cannot be impugned by unserious people. They wanted to drag us into Dasukigate; they couldn’t do that. The money we got was remitted to the party for the election,” he said.
-Punch
