A former National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Senator Adams Oshiomhole, has revealed how the National Working Committee of the party under his leadership spent money to win the governorship and other elections in some states during the 2019 general election.
He made the revelation on Wednesday at the launch of a book by a former member of the NWC, Salihu Moh. Lukman.
- Gov. Bago eases curfew on motorcycles, tricycles
- 8,000 terrorists, bandits killed under Tinubu – Defence Minister
- Ezekwesili responds to Natasha’s bribe-for-support accusation
- FCT doctors embark on three-day strike, give Wike ultimatum
- Bauchi: CP speaks as 19 die in clash between bandits, hunters
Oshiomhole, now the representative of Edo North Senatorial District, said the APC NWC under him spent N1.6 billion to prosecute and win the governorship elections in Kwara and Ogun States.
This saw to the candidates of the APC defeating the candidate of the then Governor in Ogun State, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, and the Peoples Democratic Party in Ekiti State, led by the then Senate President, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki, who also lost his bid to return to the Senate.
Speaking at the launch of: “APC and Transition Politics,” which Lukman, a former National Vice Chairman of the APC for the North West, authored, Oshiomhole said in his goodwill message: “To my credit, which Lukman refused to comment on, when I became chairman of the APC, I felt that party supremacy should go beyond giving people a platform.
“It is on record that some governors were to fund, through contributions, the states where we don’t have APC governors.
“Our NWC, for which I am proud, took the APC money, no governor contributed a dime to us, and managed our resources without going cap in hand.
“We summoned the CBN (Central Bank of Nigeria) governor to inform him that the governors have reneged on their promise to support states where we don’t have governors.
“We sent almost N800 million to reinforce the ‘Otoge’ agenda, and I am happy that we wiped out the Saraki political dynasty.
“It was not a loan, but a grant from the APC treasury.
“We even refunded the N220 million that other candidates contributed to contest against the current governor because, for us, it was a battle that must be fought and won because we must put our money where we are putting our mouth.
“In Ogun, the governor, who was rebelling against the party, thought that he would use money, but we raised N800 million from the APC account to support that governor and I am happy that he won.
“We supported Hope Uzodimma.
“And I was happy that he won.
“All of them got between N500 million to N600 million.
“We also gave in Taraba, but somehow, we lost that one.
“I want to say that Lukman never amplified the APC that contributed money to support candidates running elections on its platform.
“We supported all the 109 senatorial candidates with N20 million each to support their campaign.
“Every member of the House of Representatives, numbering 360, including the then Speaker, got N10 million each to support their campaign.
“We did it so that when we say party supremacy, they know that we are not only giving them money, we did not only campaign for them, we also funded them.
“Lukman never found space to write any of these innovations.
“Nobody did such before us and nobody had done it after I left.
“If anything, the people that took over from the caretaker committee raised two times the resources more than what we raised, but they paid themselves.
“Let me not reveal the party secrets.
“But I just like to say that we managed our resources.
“No governor contributed money.
“But there was no month we did not pay salary.”
On his sack as the National Chairman, the former two-term Governor of Edo State said: “The governors summoned me as the chairman of the party to their own preferred venue, not the one that I wrote them, an office that the party hired.
“And one by one, to the hearing of Lukman, told me that they are the generals in the field.
“They told me that they know the terrain and I cannot tell them anything.
“They were banging the table and telling me I cannot do it, threatening to leave the party.
“I don’t know if they are still around the party.
“They harassed me.
“Lukman was with the Governors Forum when they had a meeting and decided that they will tell me who they want to be governor.
“I will do all the formalities, but whoever they want must emerge.
“And I told them they were talking to the wrong person.
“I will not mortgage neither my office nor the authority of the NWC.
“I told them to take the job, while I keep my conscience, but I will not mortgage my conscience.
“I told them that if it pleases them to take it, they should take it and they took it.
“While we are battling for internal democracy, Lukman will attack the NWC as useless.
“He supported those dictators because they were picking his bills.
“They sacked me and brought in a caretaker committee and he called them the new hope.
“How can a democrat like Lukman describe an unlawful removal through zoom, even when the chairman who summoned the meeting has resigned to contest election and didn’t seek re-election to return, but was elevated to chairman overnight, as new hope?
“Lukman did not fight with pen or ink to say that this manner of removal was unfair.
“He celebrated the caretaker that came in and cleared the account.
“All the money we left in the bank, they cleared them.
“They started doing other things and developed their own ambition and Lukman started feeling it because he has been isolated.”
Follow The Eagle Online Channel on WhatsApp
