Buhari disowns campaign group on fund raising

The President Muhammadu Buhari Campaign Organisation has disowned a campaign group, Buhari Campaign Organisation, which embarked on fund raising to enhance its mobilization activities in garnering support for the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate in the 2019 general elections.

Festus Keyamo, Director, Strategic Communications, President Muhammadu Buhari Campaign Organisation, in a statement, dissociated the Campaign organization from a letter by what he described self-styled Buhari Campaign Organization to Minister of Power, Works and housing, Babatunde Fashola, soliciting contracts to raise funds for the organization.
Keyamo in the statement acknowledged: “The letter is addressed to the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing soliciting for jobs for certain named companies in order to “cushion the financial pressure on the Organisation” The letter was signed by three named individuals.”

He declared: “Let it be known to the general public and all unsuspecting individuals and organizations that the said letter DID NOT neither emanate from President Muhammadu Buhari Campaign Organisation nor was it authorized by it. The said “Buhari Campaign Organisation” does not have the authority or mandate of President Muhammadu Buhari to solicit or raise funds from public institutions, corporate bodies or individuals for any campaign activity whatsoever. This is also a notice to all such public institutions not to honour any such requests as the one from the amorphous “Buhari Campaign Organisation”.

Keyamo stated that “as previously announced, the ONLY approved campaign organisation of the President is the President Muhammadu Buhari Campaign Organisation headed by His Excellency, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, the Director-General;” indicting that a Campaign Council would also be announced in due course.

The statement further read: “We also wish to re-iterate for the umpteenth time that President Muhammadu Buhari and his campaign organisation WILL NOT have recourse to the public coffers or public funds to run the campaign. We intend to make a complete departure from past practices of the main opposition where they looted the public treasury to run their campaigns.

“We also wish to use this opportunity to inform all Buhari support groups to get in touch with the Campaign Headquarters of President Muhammadu Buhari Campaign Organisation at Plot 718 Herbert Macaulay Way, Central Business District, Abuja, in order for their activities to be streamlined.”

He warned: “We shall not tolerate any individual or groups, purporting to act on behalf of the President, going round Ministries, corporate bodies or individuals to raise funds for the campaign. Such individual or groups would be handed over to law-enforcement agencies.”