News Editor
Peter Jerome
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has commenced the probe of three national officers of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) over alleged criminal conspiracy, abuse of office, diversion of funds and fraud amounting to the tune of N10 billion.
The was contained in a letter dated May 17th, 2021 and addressed to Prince Uche Secondus, the party’s National Chairman demanding the appearance of the National Auditor, National Organising Secretary and Director of Finance at the EFCC headquarters from May 19th to 21st 2021.
Some disclosures have revealed that the operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC will quizzed not less than 11NEC officers of the Party for some interaction over their alleged involvement in the sales of forms in the 2019 polls.
According to the source, letter of invitation has already been dispatched to the affected National Executive Committee members of the party.
However, the Peoples’ Democratic Party had dismissed the allegations as spurious and irresponsible claims by a member of the party, Mr Kassim Afegbua, that the Uche Secondus-led National Working Committee, allegedly mismanaged N10bn.
It could be recalled that the said Prince Kassim Afegbua, a chieftain of the PDP and former Commissioner for Information in Edo state had petition the EFCC, asking the anti-graft agency to investigate the financial transactions of Secondus, in the spirit of transparency, accountability and book-keeping in line with the existing anti-corruption laws.
In the letter, Kassim noted that much of the financial transactions of the PDP under Prince Uche Secondus has been shrouded in mystery, accusing the leadership of deliberate attempt to shortchange the party in the build up to the 2023 general elections.
Afegbua, had in a petition submitted to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission as well as the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences, alleged that the Secondus-led NWC could not account for N10bn generated from the sale of the party’s nomination forms.
In a reaction to this, the PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, at a press conference in Abuja, said Afegbua’s petition was spurious.
Ologbondiyan said, “The attention of the PDP has been drawn to a spurious and irresponsible allegation by one Kassim Afegbua, upon which he claimed to have petitioned the EFCC and ICPC, asking that the leadership of the party account for an alleged sum of N10bn.
“According to this Afegbua, the said sum was allegedly realized from the sale of “forms in 2019”.
“While the PDP, our leaders and members are aware that there is no truth in the allegation.”
“The PDP did not raise Afegbua’s fictitious sum of N10bn as alleged by him. For the avoidance of doubt, the PDP generated the sum of N4.6bn and raised a budget for its expenditure, in line with all known financial regulations of our party.”
Ologbondiyan further explained that, the budget was approved by the relevant organs of the party.
He also said, “As a law-abiding political party that respects the doctrine of rule of law and transparency, the budget was presented to the National Executive Committee where it also received a final approval.
“Moreover, the PDP has no account under the name or guise of Afegbua’s ghostly Morufu Nigeria Limited. Having said that, as a political party under whose administration the EFCC and the ICPC were formulated and established, our party strictly adheres to best practices of transparency, accountability and probity in all issues including our financial administration.
“In addition, our party has since submitted the audited account of its financial expenditures to the INEC for 2019, in line with statutory requirements of the law.”
