Politics

N671 million fraud rocks APC leadership

Published

8 years ago

April 8, 2018

Financial records indicating a breach of all known rules and personalization of funds belonging to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has been unearthed.

It was gathered that a top leader of the party allegedly authorised the disbursement of a whopping N671, 640,000 belonging to the party into personal account of another senior member of the National Executive Council (NEC) of the party.

In the report, two “suspicious” transactions on a single day resulted in the transfer of N143.8m via two letters addressed to the manager of the Maitama, Abuja branch of a leading new generation bank.

The cash moved in two installments of N100 million and N43, 880,000 ended up in the account of another member of the party’s executive committee who hails from the Southeast.

In another transaction, a letter entitled “Authority to Transfer the Sum of N50, 000,000 from our account number (figure withheld)” was issued with the instruction to transfer the said amount to the same official.

On yet another day, another transfer of N48, 470,000 from the party’s account with the Area 3, Abuja branch of a First Generation bank was carried out involving the two top executives of the party. “A whopping N671, 640,000 was transferred to the personal account of the party executive alone under such suspicious circumstances,” the report indicated.

These transfers had continued when administrative workers at the national secretariat of the party were complaining of being owed salaries and wages.

Some members of the party national executive committee were reported to have gotten information of the classified reports detailing consistent transfer of party funds running into billions of naira to personal bank accounts of a party chief over the years for purposes not stated in the covering memo.

One member of the national executive committee who craved anonymity said: “My brother, someone like me who initially was among those canvassing tenure elongation became dumb when I saw the reckless way party money was being used. If you don’t have anything to hide, why put party’s money in personal accounts? As if that is not bad enough, once money got released, no one bothered to explain for which purpose and no retirement was made in line with the principles of book-keeping.

“So, the conclusion one could draw is that these people asking us to support the extension of their stay in office by all means are only out to continue this financial recklessness.”

Recall that at a NEC meeting of the party on February 28, the tenure of members of National Working Committee (NWC) led by John Odigie-Oyegun was extended by one year.

However, Buhari on Tuesday, March, 27, described as illegal the tenure elongation for the national chairman of the APC, John Odigie-Oyegun, and other elected officials of the party.

The president demanded that the decision to extend the party’s national working committee (NWC) led by Oyegun, be reconsidered and reversed.