PDP accuses top govt officials of looting treasury to fund President's re-election in 2019

The party named the suspended Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal, and the Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Maikanti Baru as two of those involved in the "stealing".

The PDP National Publicity Secretary, Prince Dayo Adeyeye on Thursday, October 5, made the allegations at a news conference at in Abuja.

The opposition challenged the President to order the anti-graft agencies to investigate the N25 billion NNPC scandal involving Baru, to prove the PDP wrong.

The party also called for the suspension of Baru.

Adeyeye said, "If the president’s powerful Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, could sit on the NNPC board and such a calamity is taking place without an eyelid being blinked, we are forced to believe that the stealing is being done to the advantage of the president who has shown by his body language, that the only thing that matters most to him for now, is his second term ambition.

"Will it be considered a hate speech if we say the money being ‎stolen by President Buhari is being kept aside into a special pool for the prosecution of his second term ambition?

"We challenge the president to prove us wrong by allowing his allies being caught up in acts of brazen stealing of our commonwealth get punished in accordance with the laws of the land. Anything aside this, we will take as confirmation of our suspicion that the rot is from the very top.

"The allegations raised by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources is a confirmation of our earlier stance that the APC administration is in tatters, an administration without coordination, but one planted firmly in the hands of a few cabal who are stealing the nation dry while the president continues to feign ignorance of the sickening stench.

"The sum involved in the NNPC scandal is $25bn: less than 10 per cent of that ($2bn) is involved in the so called arms fund allegedly converted by the former NSA, for which hundreds of Nigerians have been arrested and hounded."

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Responding to the allegations, the APC National Publicity Secretary, Malam Bolaji Abdullahi dared the PDP to provide evidence to back its claims.

He said Buhari has not even declared if he would run for a second term, describing the PDP as a party simply out to draw blood.