Publish Your Spending, PDP Challenges Presidency ...Urges APC to account for N40bn allegedly withdrawn from FIRS ...Allegation baseless, says APC

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Monday challenged the President Muhammadu Buhari government to lead by example by publishing details of its spending and financial transactions as an impetus to enforce its financial reporting directives on Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

The main opposition party also called on the All Progressives Congress (APC) to come clean on revelations in the public space that the N40 billion taxpayers’ money allegedly siphoned from the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) was used to finance its 2019 election campaigns.

But in a swift response, the APC described the statement from the PDP alleging that the sum of N40 billion was released to the party by the FIRS to prosecute the 2019 election political campaigns as hogwash and baseless.

The PDP in a statement issued by the National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, also tasked the presidency to publish details, including the beneficiaries, the purpose and the amount of each payment, in line with the presidential directive to the MDAs.

 

The PDP said it is not enough for Buhari to issue spending directives to MDAs without his presidency, which received billions of naira in budgetary allocation, leading by example.

According to the PDP, "Nigerians deserve to know how much is allocated to the presidency; the various expenditure subheads, process of award of contracts, the contractors, the beneficiaries, amounts paid and the payment system.

"Perhaps such would explain why certain individuals who are close to the presidency live in ostentatious opulence and flaunt very expensive lifestyle in the same country where millions of citizens wallow in abject poverty, hunger, homelessness and disease."

The party noted that it is worrisome that the Buhari presidency has failed to make details of its yearly budget and expenditure public, despite several demands for openness, a situation which has raised anxieties and allegations of huge sleazes and corrupt concealments against certain officials and cabal in the presidency.

The PDP alleged in the statement that there are several ‘ugly scenarios around the presidency, including the arrest in October of a suspected scammer, Abdulrauf Illyasu’, who even enjoyed an office accommodation within the safety and cover of the presidential villa.

This, the party said, was in addition to the arrest of a said confidant of the president, Nasir Danu, at Heathrow Airport, United Kingdom, for alleged international passport scam and money laundering while allegedly ferrying currencies for persons said to be close to the presidency.

Meanwhile, the PDP has called on the APC to come clean on revelations in the public that the N40 billion taxpayers’ money allegedly siphoned from the FIRS was used to finance its 2019 election campaigns.

The party said in a statement by Ologbondiyan that the revelation, which has reportedly unsettled certain persons in the Buhari presidency, has further exposed the APC as a decadent lot and a gathering of treasury looters who thrive in cheating and deceit at a very high level.

The PDP called on Nigerians to note how the APC and its federal government have failed to account for various pillaging of public funds in the Buhari administration, including the N14 trillion stolen through various phony contracts in the NNPC as well as direct drawings from other government agencies such as the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).

 

It further said if the trillions of naira stolen and stashed away in private purses of APC leaders are recovered and directed to development projects, the  country would not be in its present sorry state orchestrated by the Buhari administration.

Meanwhile, the APC  has described the statement from the PDP alleging that the sum of N40 billion was released to the party by the FIRS to prosecute the 2019 election political campaigns as hogwash and baseless.

The National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu, in a statement issued yesterday, said the matter of dipping hands into public coffers as a matter of official policy ended with PDP.

The ruling party recalled that leaders of the PDP had contemplated changing the name of the party at a time because they were ashamed of their own record of sleaze.

Issa-Onilu said: "The baseless allegations contained in the media reports and the subsequent statement by the PDP is an unintelligent and crude attempt at a smear campaign. Only the sponsors of the report believe their tales.

"We call on the sponsors of the baseless allegation to resolve their confusion. Last time it was N90 billion, now it is N40billion. We also challenge them to provide evidence from not only FIRS but any other government agency where the APC took one kobo for campaign.”

The party in a separate statement yesterday said the National Working Committee (NWC) observed  a minute silence was observed in honour of late Idde, who was until his death, the Board Chairman of the Lower Niger River Basin Development Authority.

APC said it has sent a delegation to his family to deliver the party's condolences.