PDP claims Ikoyi N18bn part of alleged £140m Amaechi used to sponsor Buhari’s election

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) faction led by Senator Ahmed Makarfi, has claimed that the N18billion discovered in an apartment in Ikoyi, Lagos, was part of money Transport Minister Rotimi Amaechi allegedly used to sponsor the All Progressives Congress’ (APC’s) 2015 general elections.

UK Mail Online had some time ago in an article by Paul Cahalan entitled, “Is Nigerian leader’s pal ‘fantastically corrupt’? Friend of African president accused of stealing £500million,” made reference to accusations against Amaechi, former Rivers State governor, diverting £140million of state funds into Buhari’s presidential campaign.

The National Caretaker Committee chairman of the PDP, Makarfi, who had been denounced by a court alleged that the recovered money was part funds Amaechi sponsored APC election with in 2015.

He also claimed that the reason government is shying away from revealing the identity of the owner of the money was because undeniable evidence links the money to the transport minister.

He stated this in a statement released by the PDP faction’s national publicity secretary Prince Dayo Adeyeye, and made available to journalists in Abuja on Sunday.

The statement read in part, “The most absurd of this charade is the macabre dance on the so called $43,449,947, £27,800 and N23,218,000, purportedly recovered at an apartment in Osborne Road, Ikoyi, Lagos.

“The government is at a crossroad as the whistle-blower and the EFCC are now shying away from telling Nigerians who owns the money because undeniable evidence links the money to the proceeds from the sale of turbines by the former Governor of Rivers State and now Minister of Transport, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi.

“It has also been revealed that part of that proceeds was used by Mr. Amaechi to prosecute the campaigns of the APC in 2015.”

PDP insisted that President Buhari’s corruption war was only designed to punish and humiliate members of the PDP alone.

Read also: Democracy abhors secrecy, reveal who owns Ikoyi N18bn cash, SERAP tells Buhari

According to the party, it was this reason allegation of corruption involving top government officials and members of the ruling APC have always been set aside and suspects discharged and acquitted while others remained in the custody of both the EFCC and the Department of State Services without trial.

“Nigerians may also recall the several allegations of corruption made against prominent APC members that the anti-graft agency has not attended to. The Chairman of EFCC, Mr. Ibrahim Magu, has been rejected twice by the Nigerian Senate because of damning corruption allegations against him made by another agency of government.

“The same with the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Mr. Babachir Lawal, and a host of other government officials against whom very serious allegations have been made.

“None of them has been subjected to the usual interrogations and investigation,” he said.

This is coming as both Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State and Nigeria Intelligence Agency (NIA) are laying claim to the ownership of the N18billion discovered in Ikoyi.

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