Following the defeat suffered by President Goodluck Jonathan and his party, the PDP, during the March 28 and April 11 elections, the President has asked Party Leaders and government officials who handled campaign funds to refund the monies.
Jonathan, credible sources revealed, has also set up a committee of five strong men to get all those with his money to return them with immediate effect.
President Jonathan is very angry that despite giving campaign coordinators, ministers, special advisers, close aides and friends, support groups and traditional rulers about N2trillion in cash, most of them could not even deliver their polling booths, like Musiliu Obanikoro in Lagos and others...
The President was said to have been further irked by the results of an investigation he ordered. The probe showed that some coordinators used campaign funds to buy very expensive properties, especially in Abuja, and luxury cars. Some of the funds have also been traced to the bank accounts of senior party and government officials who were charged with the disbursement of funds to voters and groups.
A reliable source within the Presidency told Punch that one of the President's agent, who recently admitted to a few close aides that it would be difficult to retrieve all the funds, was bent on getting senior party and government officials who received funds to account for all monies collected.
The source who is a close associate of Jonathan said monies given to traditional rulers in different parts of the country, for example, would not be demanded for. But the source was quick to add that the President was determined to get his ministers, close aides and special advisers to make refunds.
He said, “Some ministers did not get less than N20bn each. None of them can deny it because this fact isn’t hidden within government circles. The only problem with such monies is that there is no receipt to show that they collected money. The sad part is that almost all of them performed woefully. Even in the states where the PDP won, some ministers could not deliver 100,000 votes. They could not mobilise their people to come out. The President is not happy. They all went property and car shopping. This was the most expensive election in the history of this country, yet there was no result.
“The sad part was that even after the President lost on March 28, more money was given to all of them to make up for the dismal outing by winning their states during the April 11 elections. But that turned out to be a bad decision because apart from losing the governorship election, we didn’t perform well at the National Assembly and House of Representatives polls.
“They must give an account of the money since they didn’t use it for the election. The President is not particular about the funds spent on genuine campaign needs like the hiring of jets, advertisements and the rest that also cost billions of naira. His focus is on the individuals that collected billions to deliver their states but couldn’t even win their polling booths.”
It was gathered that apart from the N20bn given to some key ministers and senior special advisers, especially in states where the PDP hoped to capture from the All Progressives Congress, some pro-Jonathan support groups received about N16bn.
A former legislator who was to print five million recharge cards, T-shirts and base ball caps has also come under pressure to account for the billions she received because only a few people got the items she was paid to produce. Also, a top female politician in Lagos who got a contract to produce and supply thousands of mobile phones with pro-Jonathan messages was said to have produced just a few and pocketed most of the funds.
It was learnt that the funds Jonathan released were disbursed in three phases. Some were released before the March 28 elections, others on the day of the presidential election and more before the April 11 governorship polls.
Already, the committee of five has started asking some of the campaign coordinators and ministers who received a minimum of N20bn each to give an account and also refund residual funds where applicable.
However, Punch learnt that most of the people who received the funds had not cooperated with the committee. While some have not been forthcoming, others have simply ignored the committee.
Jonathan is said to be particularly focusing on the South-West and northern states.
In Lagos, a popular PDP chieftain who lost in his polling booth reportedly received $50m in cash a few days before the governorship elections.
A senior PDP member who spoke to Punch in Lagos over the weekend confirmed the cash splurge in Lagos. He said, “Lagos was a show of shame. A few days to the governorship poll, about $150m was received in cash by about five top campaign coordinators. But they failed again, even more than we did in the presidential poll because we lost some areas we won on March 28 to the APC on April 11. They were to share this money to the local governments and the masses.
“Please understand me, I am saying that the sum of $150m was just for the governorship election in Lagos. We are not talking about the sums they got for the presidential election. Only one out of the five people that shared the money gave some of it to local government chairmen. This person disbursed about N2bn. The rest of them sat on the money.
“The coordinator that collected the sum of $50m later went to a Federal Government agency and complained of not having enough funds for the election and got an additional $20m. The story is the same in almost all the South-West especially Oyo, Osun, and the northern states. A female minister from the North, who got the highest amount of funds for that region, lost her state in a shameful manner.”
Some men have becoming big boys overnight but Jonathan is returning to his village alone. How sad!
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