First in history: EFCC probes party finances, begins with PDP’s N10bn allegation

The Uche-Secondus PDP national working committee has earned the prestige of being the first party in Nigeria to open its books—involuntarily, though—to the nation’s anti-graft body many believe is an attack of the ruling APC.

The national auditor, the organizing secretary, finance director of the PDP have been invited to come and clarify some shady transactions in the running of the party.

It is the second time clarification will be demanded from chairman Secondus and his men. A party man first asked for it.

Kazeem Afegbua, from the Edo chapter of the PDP, called out his party’s NWC over the perceived irregularity in the party’s spending—about N10bn.

His allegation was based on a leaked memo from the party’s national auditor’s office. The auditor, Adamu Mustapha, raised the alarm then.

According to him, the audit department has been unable to perform its functions as enshrined in the constitution and the extant laws.

“To illustrate as example, the audit department was incapacitated by lack of access to the necessary inputs that will enable it to discharge its duties,” he said in the memo to the NWC

“For whatever reasons, there is no access to all financial transactions (cash inflows and outflows) documents of the party like cashbooks, receipts, vouchers, registers cheques and bank statements all of which are necessary input or pre-audit for due process, internal control and reconciliation.”

Afegbua latched on this to amplify the alarm. He was dismissed. And the party’s national publicity secretary said it was an internal affair, and it had been settled as such. Secondus even threatened to slam hi with a multi-billion-naira suit.

So the petitioner escalated it to the EFCC, which wrote the party’s national headquarters the invitation for the staggered interrogation—from Wednesday to Friday.

Earlier, the PDP had made a categorical appeal to the EFCC chairman Abdulrasheed Bawa, when he was recently appointed, to avoid partisanship

He is now being put to the test.