(NIGERIA) Governor of Kaduna State in the Second Republic, Balarabe Musa, has condemned the donations made to the Peoples Democratic Party during the party’s recent fundraiser for the 2015 elections.
Businessmen, multinational organisations, interest groups and individuals, at a fund-raising dinner held in the Presidential Villa, Abuja, penultimate Saturday, donated N21.27bn to support President Goodluck Jonathan’s campaign.
In an interview with SUNDAY PUNCH, Musa expressed his shock, while questioning the source of the funds.
“What this shows is that corruption has been legalised in Nigeria by the government and party in power. Some of the donors are the 21 governors of the PDP. And officially, each one of them contributed N50m. Now, the question is: Where did the governors get N50m to donate?
“It must be from the public funds of each state because none of them is capable of contributing that amount of money from his legitimate earnings. Also, some of the donors contributed N2bn. One of the donors contributed N5bn. How can a private individual contribute that much money from his legitimate earnings?
“Even as the owner of a company, he could not have contributed that much from his legitimate earnings. It means these are people who were awarded contracts from the Federal Government with the understanding that when the time comes, they would donate a specific amount, which they did. The whole thing is corrupt,” the ex-governor said.
According to Musa, the donors might have served as collectors of controversial donations from organisations and companies that had enjoyed favours from the Federal Government.
The elder statesman also indicted anti-graft agencies for keeping mum on the donations, despite sparking outrage and contravening the Constitution.
“What is most surprising is that we have three anti-corruption agencies in Nigeria — the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Code of Conduct Bureau.
“None of them cares to do anything about it. From the time each of these donations was announced, by now, we should have heard that some of them have been arrested by some of these anti-corruption agencies. But this has not happened,” Musa added.
(REPORT FROM THE PUNCH)
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