PDP Staff Threaten to Drag NWC Members to EFCC over Alleged N13bn Embezzlement
The financial crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Friday assumed a new dimension when the staff of the national secretariat of the party urged the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)
and other anti-graft agencies to quiz members of the party's National Working Committee for alleged embezzlement of over N13 billion.
The party's NWC had Thursday issued a circular in which it literally sacked all the staff of the party in a re-organisation of the secretariat, asking "The few retained" to obtain letters of confirmation of loyalty to the party from their respective state party chairmen.
However, the angry workers apart from making allegations of sleaze against the NWC members, asked for the immediate resignation of the current PDP-NWC led by Prince Uche Secondus, insisting that they had lost all moral right to remain in office and that they allegedly were dragging the PDP to extinction.
But, national secretary, Prof. Adewale Oladipo and national publicity secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh dismissed the allegations as “baseless and nonsense”, saying such were not unexpected.
Oladipo and Metuh at separate telephone interviews, wondered why it took the staff so long to come up with their allegations, adding that it was curious it came at a time they were asking for the removal of the Director-General of the Department of State Security (DSS) and the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as well as putting the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) on its toes.
According to Metuh, "They are free to make allegations. We have asked them to bring letters from their state chairmen to prove they are loyal to the party. All these ones are diversionary and we are not bothered".
Earlier, while addressing a press conference at the party secretariat, chairman of the PDP Staff Welfare Association, Mrs. Ngozi Nzeh and Secretary, Mr. Dan Ochu-Baiye, said the political fortunes of the PDP had continued to dwindle since the coming on board of the present National Working Committee in March 2012.
Flanked by almost all the staff of the secretariat, the chairman stated that , "The party under the current leadership of Prince Uche Secondus as acting national chairman and Professor Wale Oladipo as national secretary has been systematically and deliberately dismembered and is being led to the morgue in preparation for its final burial".
Among the allegations against the NWC were the squandering of over N12 billion in nine months; compelling delegates to the last presidential convention to pay a levy of N10,000 each totaling over N1 billion which was allegedly paid into the Zenith bank account of a private company allegedly called Morufi Nig. Ltd, as well as alleged non-payment of legitimate bills owed media houses, contractors and cleaners.
The workers in insisting that the current NWC must go, said they had petitioned all the organs of the party, including the Board of Trustee (BoT), the party's Caucus and the PDP-Governors' Forum and furnished them with detailed report and documentary evidence of the negative activities of the NWC members, stressing that only their resignation, arrest and prosecution would save the PDP from extinction.
"Never in the glorious history of our great party has its fortunes been so hopelessly mismanaged by an inept and dishonest group whose sworn mission is to permanently destroy and liquidate the lofty organisation that midwifed the current democratic dispensation.
"The current National Working Committee is only hanging on because of the obscene and bizarre bazaar which they have subjected the purse of the party to. Millions of PDP members are in great pains with the current reality of how the party which in the recent past paraded the most decent and nationalistic Nigerians is now being run aground by a patently incompetent and self-centered sets of NWC members.
"It is curious to observe that a party which once prided itself as the biggest party in Africa could be so liquidated by such executive recklessness of its NWC members so much so that N12 billion was squandered in nine months.
"Party members will need to know why delegates were compelled to pay the sum of N10,000 each into a private account of a company called MORUFI NIG. LTD. We are aware that over N1 billion was realised from this fraudulent exercise. Why did the NWC compel Party members to pay sums into a company account rather than the usual party account in the same Zenith Bank?
"As part of their agenda to ridicule and crumble the party, legitimate bills owed to media houses, contractors and even cleaners have not been paid till date. Most party members who conducted congresses and primaries that generated these huge sums have also not been paid.
"Will over 12 million members of PDP believe that even as we address this press conference, the NWC are still using party finances to fund frivolous personal expenses such as weddings, naming ceremonies, funerals to the tunes of hundreds of millions naira.
"Because of these ceaseless acts of recklessness and palpable fear for their fate, they have refused to summon a meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC) since the party lost in the last elections. Shouldn't any organisation with a responsible leadership call for a NEC meeting for an appraisal of what transpired months after we lost elections"?
The workers further alleged that the NWC changed results submitted by congress committees, failed to remit campaign funds to state chapters and wholesome embezzlement of proceeds of sale of nomination forms.
