The Director of Strategic Communications of the President Muhammadu Buhari Campaign Organization, Festus Keyamo, has said that the reports making the rounds that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, was funding Buhari’s quest to return to power in 2019 was false and the handiwork of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
Reports emerged during the week that he (Keyamo) received a huge amount of money from the NNPC, for President Muhammadu Buhari’s campaign.
The Buhari’s campaign spokesperson, in a statement he personally signed and made available to reporters in Abuja on Thursday, pointed out that reports which claimed that he had also submitted another larger budget to the corporation to run the publicity aspect of the campaign was false.
Keyamo, while describing the report as false, blamed the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, for the false allegation, adding they were trying to attribute its old habit to the Buhari administration.
The statement reads, “Our attention has been drawn to a fake news making the rounds to the effect that the Director of Strategic Communications and Spokesperson of President Muhammadu Buhari Campaign Organisation, Mr Festus Keyamo, SAN, has received a certain large sum of money from the NNPC and submitted yet another larger budget to the same Corporation to run the media and publicity department of the campaign.
“The story is the classic example of the many rots in the system that President Muhammadu Buhari is determined to address. It used to be the case during the era of PDP at the centre that election periods are always seen as a time for bazaar and jamboree when the public treasury is opened for soothsayers, witchdoctors, fraudsters, prostitutes, party loyalists, and all kinds of funny characters to feast upon.
“Hence, between January and the time of the elections in 2015, the PDP opened the treasury and withdrew One Hundred Billion Naira (N100,000,000,000.00) that was shared to all kinds of characters.”
“It is this same tendency they exhibited and still have that they now attempt to attribute to us.
“If anything at all, the experience of the loss of the PDP in 2015 has taught everyone a bitter lesson: the sharing of money does not win elections and we do not intend to go that route.
“We shall continue to showcase the achievements of President Muhammadu Buhari to convince Nigerians that he deserves a second term in office. As we speak, the commissioning of the completed Port Harcourt International airport is ongoing.
“For the avoidance of doubt, my participation in this campaign is part of my larger crusade to enthrone an accountable government and true democracy in our polity.
“To me, this is not just a campaign but a crusade, hence, I came out of my shell to make a full-blown participation in the process. I am determined to make my little contribution to prevent those who have looted our treasury in the past to establish “big businesses” that they now flaunt in our faces and who have been indicted both locally and internationally from staging a comeback to power.
“In the process, my hard-earned integrity would be guarded jealously. I have not and will not go near the public purse and the President’s Campaign Organisation will not do so either.
“This is a pledge before the Nigerian people by which we shall stand.”
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