The ‘tax collectors’ tag which Governer Onyesom Wike of Rivers State hung on the party will continue to haunt the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
According to the Buhari Media Organisation (BMO), this is regardless of PDP’s belated attempt to disprove claims by one of its key leaders that the party’s ticket for the last Governorship election in Edo State was sold to Governor Godwin Obaseki.In a statement signed by its Chairman Niyi Akinsiju and Secretary Cassidy Madueke, BMO said the PDP is widely known to have a long-standing reputation for selling its tickets to the highest bidders.
“We clearly understand why members of PDP’s former National Working Committee (NWC) opted to use the valedictory session held in their honour to clear their names, but we also know that not many Nigerians will take them seriously.”This has a lot to do with the mercantile mentality of members of the former ruling party which has over the years been used in a jocular manner to describe them.
“We however find it ironic that the former party spokesman, Kola Ologbodiyan, dragged in PDP’s elective national convention in 2018 in a speech that largely centered around clearing the former NWC of trading in the ticket for a major election.”We make bold to say that it was a convention that redefined PDP’s image as a political buccaneer, especially in the manner bureaux de change operators ran out of United States dollars in Port Harcourt, Rivers State as former Vice President Atiku Abubakar picked the party’s presidential ticket.
“So it was not surprising that Governor Wike who was at the receiving end at the time is the same person who called out PDP leaders two years later and tagged them ‘tax collectors'”.BMO added that PDP has a long history of financial malfeasances which should not surprise key watchers of Nigerian politics.
“Which politically active Nigerian does not know that PDP raised N27bn at two fund raising events in 2012 and 2014 respectively for its secretariat which was estimated at about N16bn, but almost 10 years after construction began, the 12-storey building has yet to be completed.”We dare the new PDP leadership to prove that the funds raised for the projects did not disappear into private pockets by inviting the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to wade into the matter.
“Speaking of EFCC and PDP, we recall that the Commission recently began an investigation into a N10bn fraud against the former NWC at the instance of one of its chieftains, Prince Kassim Afegbua.”So, in a party which has always been associated with fraud, no one will take seriously, Ologbodiyan’s half-hearted effort to clear the name of the Uche Secondus-led NWC”, the group said.
BMO urged Nigerians to ignore the party’s latest efforts to hoodwink them with a new but empty slogan ahead of the 2023 election.
