Kwara state PDP has submitted that the state APC Chairman, Prince Sunday Fagbemi boasting about his party’s financial strength ahead of the 2023 general election has, once again, proved its earlier assertions right.
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The recent statements made by Prince Sunday Fagbemi have proved the opposition party right, the state PDP Chairman, Alhaji Tunde Mohammed asserted during the press conference he presided over at the state secretariat, GRA, Ilorin , on Thursday which was attended by journalists including Team@orientactualmags.com.
A viral video of Prince Sunday Fagbemi while addressing party members during the mini rally held by the APC in Obbo-Aiyegunle , Ekiti Local Government , Kwara state, last week had him boasting about the financial strength of the ruling party.
‘We are in government, from top to bottom in Kwara state, we have enough access to public fund such that if the PDP leaders try to spend like us, they will just go bankrupt’ Fagbemi , who spoke in Yoruba language, had submitted.
Submitting that the Abdulrahaman Abdulrazaq administration had gotten close to half a trillion naira as funds made available for its use since 2019, but had not however complete or inaugurate a single landmark project, the state PDP also accused the current administration in the state of misusing public fund.
‘An example is the one hundred and thirty eight million Naira (N138m) by a contractor, Mr. Abass Abdulrazaq, purportedly released for the purchase of electric transformers. We have also been assaulted by allegations of fraud, contract padding and outright graft leveled against the Kwara State APC regime, according to Non- Governmental Organizations including Elites Network for Sustainable Development (ENetSuD).
In addition to the above, we in the PDP as well as other concerned Kwarans have been asking since 2021 that the Kwara state APC regime should provide the list, locations and Bills of Quantities (BOQs) of over six hundred phantom school buildings renovated under the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), which had cost Kwarans over fourteen Billion Naira (N14 Bn), to no avail.
Members of the press, ladies and gentlemen, you will do well to remember the humongous loans of over fifty billion Naira (N50B) taken by the Kwara APC government in less than four years. According to the Governor, Seventeen Billion Naira (N17B) has been put aside in an unknown account and in an unknown financial institution. We in the PDP suspect that the N17B must be part of the public funds that the APC Chairman was boasting about that they will use for elections. We need not mention the numerous secret grants already accessed by the Kwara APC regime. The refusal of the governor to sign the Freedom of Information bill (FOI) after 44 months that he has been in office has also effectively scuttled any legal means of challenging the regime’s opaque revenue receipts and application.
We in the PDP have actually been proved right through the unguarded statements made by the Chairman of the Kwara APC’ he said.
While alleging that the APC was planning to cause confusion and undermine the electoral process in other to ensure that Governor Abdulrazaq gets re-elected, PDP added that the way the governor’s glossy and expensive re-election campaign billboards and posters had been changed almost every day has confirmed availability of public fund for such purposes.
Alhaji Tunde Mohammed also disclosed that Kwara state PDP has petitioned the Special Fraud Unit of the Force Criminal Investigation & Intelligence Department (FCIID) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC , demanding that Prince Sunday Fagbemi should be invited for questioning.
‘We will like to inform members of the press, Kwarans and other Nigerians that, the Kwara State PDP has officially petitioned the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) demanding that the Chairman of Kwara state APC, Prince Sunday Fagbemi be invited for questioning immediately. We are also using the petition to alert the two anti-graft agencies to monitor and stop any illegal cash withdrawals and transfers from all bank accounts belonging to Kwara state government’ he said.
The PDP chairman also urged Kwarans to vote for PDP candidates across the board in the upcoming general election ‘so that we can rescue Nigeria and actually save Kwarans’ from those he called ‘political hawks’- Team@orientactualmags.com
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