Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State has said that President Muhammadu Buhari has donated N12.5 billion from the Treasury Single Account (TSA) to Kogi State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) ahead of the governorship elections.
Fayose claims the donations from the federal account is to enable APC rig the elections in favour of their candidate even as Lokoja, the state capital, stood still for Governor Idris Wada on Monday, November 16, 2015.
Governor Fayose likened President Buhari’s administration to that of former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration, describing them as “democratic dictators” where the rule of law is not respected. He added that he was not surprised based on their military background.
Fayose made these remarks at the confluence stadium in Lokoja during the grand finale of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) rally, adding that looking critically at the administration of the APC at the centre, people have discovered that the Buhari-led government does not posse is an iota of respect for human rights, saying the president only concentrated on chasing PDP members on allegations of corruption when many of his men who surround him are facing trial for gross corrupt practices.
He asked where President Buhari was when the APC cleared the former governor of the Kogi State, Alhaji Abubakar Audu, to contest the governorship of the state when he (Audu) has avalanche of corrupt charges hanging on his neck in the last 12 years. He called on the president to carefully look around himself before running after other people, saying the nation belongs to Nigerians just as he pointed out that every citizen had equal right.
The Ekiti governor said: “The APC-led government only goes around the challenges confronting the nation, the issue of Boko Haram, and the dwindling economic situation became worse in the last six months of the Buhari administration. This government has only achieved a lot in the area of chasing shadows, making the nation worse for the people.”
Fayose alleged that the sum of N12.5 billion was released by the federal government two days ago to Kogi State to enable their party perpetrate rigging and urged the people to take their destiny in their hands.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has debunked the allegation saying no such impunity is going on in Buhari’s administration.
In his statement, Mohammed said those behind this accusation would have known of this fact if they had allowed themselves some measure of honesty.
He said: ‘’It is understandable that the psyche of those who are making the frivolous allegations concerning the TSA has been badly affected by the impunity that permeated the country under the immediate past administration, when unappropriated funds were freely used to finance elections and the public till was seen as an extension of personal piggy banks.
‘’But the lies that have been wilfully disseminated by scandalmongers over the TSA cannot and will not fly, because it was precisely to put an end to such impunity that Nigerians voted massively for President Muhammadu Buhari, who has an unblemished reputation for integrity, due process, transparency and the rule of law.
‘’Those behind the rumour that a single company, Systemspecs, made 25 billion Naira from charging 1 per cent of TSA funds that passed through the company’s software, Remita, may need to return to elementary school to get some lessons in arithmetic.
‘’This is because in order for 1 per cent charge to fetch 25 billion Naira, the funds accruing into the TSA must have reached 2.5 trillion Naira. Yet, the total amount of funds in the TSA to date is still much less than 2 trillion.
‘’More importantly, at the time the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) ordered that all monies that were erroneously charged as ‘revenue’ be returned to the TSA Account late last month, the TSA had less than 800 billion Naira. It therefore beggars belief that anyone could attempt to mislead the public by raising a false alarm that a firm made 25 billion Naira in TSA charges.”
