Some of the former governors and a serving governor mentioned by a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa as allegedly buying their way into the All Progressives Congress, APC, and introducing corruption into the party, have condemned his utterances as false.
Mr. Bafarawa had in an interview published on Thursday, claimed that former Governors Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano), Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko (Sokoto), Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers), Murtala Nyako (Adamawa) and current Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed (Kwara), who defected from the PDP in 2014, paid N100million each to be admitted into the APC.
“When they (five governors) came into the APC, they were warmly received because they had the money to contribute N100 million each.
“When I, a founding member and acting chairman of the party’s constitution drafting committee queried why they were expressly allowed entry, I was bluntly told they had money to give. I then offered to also contribute N100 million but my own contribution was rejected.
“Those five governors entered APC to corrupt the party, and they succeeded in doing so”, Bafarawa, a former governor of Sokoto State, was quoted in the interview as saying.
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First to respond to the allegation was Bafarawa’s successor in Sokoto, Wamakko, who asked the PDP chieftain to to go and clear himself of the arms deal allegation currently hanging over his head.
Speaking through his former aide, Alhaji Abubakar Cika Umar, Wamakko, who is now a Senator, said: “He (Bafarawa) is a shameless person; otherwise, he would not be dishing out falsehood when he has a serious allegation dangling on him. He is being accused of participating in the cornering of the arms money and we all know the diversion of the arms money contributed to the escalation of the insurgency”.
“The diversion of the funds led to the killing of innocent persons, turned thousands of children to orphans and made many women to become widows”, Umar said.
Bafarawa is one of politicians that are being probed over the diversion of arms funds under the former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki. He was alleged to have collected N4.6billion from the Office of the NSA.
Also, Governor Ahmed, through his Senior Special Assistant on Media, Dr. Muideen Akorede, said, “All the allegations were not true because none of the five governors at the time paid any amount to join the APC”.
“In Kwara for instance, our political structure is an independent one, which made it possible for us to move into the party in mass. We didn’t dislodge any member of the APC but only gave life to it”, he said.
Also, Hajiya Binta Sipikin, an aide to Kwankwaso, also now a senator, said her principal will not join issues with the ex-Sokoto governor.
“Senator Kwankwaso is seriously attending to national issues for the betterment of Nigerians. This is not time for politicking but a time to consolidate the gains of the APC”, she said.
