PDP: APC, Tinubu in N22.5bn Naira Swap for Vote Buying
The leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has alleged plans by the leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu to swap N22.5 billion stashed old naira notes to new ones in Kano State.
But the Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) of the APC has challenged the PDP to provide evidence that the ruling party planned to swap such amount of old notes to the new ones.
National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Debo Ologunagba, in a statement yesterday said the intended swapping of N22.5 billion stashed old naira notes to new ones in Kano State, was part of a desperate move to actualise APC vote buying plans in the elections.
He said information available to the party revealed that this act by the APC, which was responsible for the biting cash scarcity was allegedly being coordinated in the North West region of the country by two APC State governors, who ironically have been vocal in the lamentation over the prevailing cash crunch.
The main opposition party further alleged that there was intelligence that the arrangement had been concluded by APC leaders to move a substantial part of the old naira notes from Kano to Lagos State between today and tomorrow for the purposes of swapping them with new ones.
“The PDP has been made aware that the N22.5 billion in old N1000 notes was allegedly kept in a Kano State Government facility before being moved to a particular old generation and a certain new generation bank, where the regional heads were contacted by the APC Presidential Campaign to swap the old notes with new ones.
“Further information revealed that the cash is being warehoused by the Tinubu Campaign for vote buying in Kano, Kaduna, Bauchi, Jigawa and Sokoto States. A particular APC State governor is reported to have taken delivery of N500 million new Naira notes to actualise the vote buying plot,” Ologunagba said.
The PDP, therefore, alerted the security agencies and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) of this nefarious activity by APC leaders, which it said was bringing untold hardship to Nigerians.
Ologunagba added: “Our party demands an immediate action to stop APC in this criminal act as well as to recover the money and make the new Naira notes available to the public.”
The PDP had earlier alerted Nigerians that some corrupt APC leaders were compromising the system to mop up the new bank notes for their selfish vote-buying plans ahead of the February 25, presidential election.
But replying the PDP, the Director Media and Publicity, APC PCC, Bayo Onanuga, said it was not enough to dish out cock and bull stories in the name of press releases and therefore challenged the party to provide evidence, stressing also that making senseless allegations every passing day has become the hallmark of the PDP campaign.
Onanuga noted: “Let them provide the evidence if they uncovered such. It is not enough to dish out cock and bull stories in the name of press releases. Making senseless allegations every passing day, which has become the hallmark of PDP campaign is not how to win election.
“Nigerians cannot be deceived by a party of looters. Nigerians can’t forget a party of people that looted over $2 billion dollars meant for arms procurement, when Boko Haram was killing our citizens and almost took over three states in the north east.
“We challenge PDP to bring out any evidence of their latest allegation otherwise the party of looters should hide its ugly face in perpetual shame.”
