The
National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr Adams
Oshiomhole, has dismissed allegations that he collected bribes of about
80 million dollars to manipulate the outcome of the party primaries in
some states and FCT.
 |
| Oshiomhole meets Buhari, dismisses allegations of corruption |
Some agrieved aspirants are accusing Oshiohmole of collecting various sums in bribery to twist the primaries.
Speculations are also gaining currency that he was last week
interrogated by the Department of State Service (DSS) over the outcome
of the recently conducted APC primaries.
An online media outfit which allegedly accused the APC chairman of
collecting about 80 million dollars in bribes, however, reported that
Oshiomhole had become a target after refusing 500,000 dollars bribe cash
from one of the aggrieved APC governors.
It reported that the affected governor had wanted the APC chairman to adopt his anointed governorship candidate.
“It was gathered that many godfathers and governorship candidates
were desperate for tickets but Oshiomhole stood his ground that he will
not compromise party guidelines,’’ it further stated.
But, Oshiomhole, who spoke to State House correspondents after a
closed door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential
Villa, described the allegations of corruption against him as reckless
insinuation.
“No tree that will bear fruits will grow in Sahara desert and
the fact that the publisher of Saharareporters himself is a presidential
aspirant, we would soon find out the difference between Sahara and its
reporters, and a green forest and its reporters.
“The unfortunate thing here, however, is that people, who specialize
in libels take advantage of our peculiar judicial system.
“When I was a governor in Edo state, they published all kinds of
things against me. At a point I decided to go to court and my lawyer
told me that I have to be ready to enter the witness box to make my case
– whether I was ready to go through that humiliation”.
“What is in the governorship? Before I became the governor I entered
the witness box and I know after being governor I can still go back
there one day. So I went there and I won the case. They awarded damages
in my favour.
“But by the time you want to check the process of the guy who libeled
you and so on, he sells himself, and everything put together, he could not
compensate for my legal fee not to talk of really mitigating my paying
as a result of the judgment,’’ he said.
 |
| Advertisement |
On the forthcoming campaign programmes of the APC, Oshiomhole
revealed that the party’s campaign for the 2019 presidential election
would focus on character and integrity of the key candidates.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Buhari is the APC
presidential candidate while the main opposition Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP) is presenting former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar as its
candidate.
According to the party chairman, the APC is fully ready to flag off the campaigns soon.
He said: “We are fully ready, we are done with our primaries and filled our nominations. As you know, INEC still has a window between now and first of
January to deal with issues of substitution. As of campaigns, we are
ready”.
“We are going to announce the date and programme for our campaigns.
My idea of kick-off will be the day we will do our first presidential
rally where Mr President as our candidate and other candidates, party
leaders will assemble in a venue that will be agreeable to all of us.
“There will be two sets of messages. One, on what we have done in the
past, without failing to remind people of where we were before, what we
are going to do in the next four years, and a couple of things we
believe we will be doing differently.
“President Buhari, if compared to the rest of the candidates, there is
no basis to compare day and night. The real issue in this election is
not going to be religion. It is not going to be about ethnicity.
“Central to the issue and given our past experience as a country, we
know that what makes a difference is the character, the issue of
integrity of the candidates.’’
According to Oshiomhole, the campaign is going to be focusing on
character and integrity of those who want to govern the country.
NAN
