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General News of Friday, 10 March 2023

Source: punchng.com

Kwara PDP, APC trade words over alleged voter inducement

APC and PDP logo APC and PDP logo

The Kwara State branch of the Peoples Democratic Party, on Thursday, raised the alarm over alleged transfer of funds from the state government accounts to voters to allegedly inducing them ahead of the March 18 governorship and House of Assembly elections.

Speaking at a press conference in Ilorin, the Director General of the PDP Campaign Council in Kwara State, Prof. Ali Ahmad, said the council had directed its legal department to write the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and other anti-corruption agencies over the development.

He stated, “We have correct and factual information about how political office holders, private individuals outside government, influential people in our society, and even bureaucrats receive huge money from government accounts and these individuals then either retain the money as their own to buy their support while some others are charged with paying a huge part of the money in tranches of N20,000, N30,000 and N10,000 to ordinary voters.

“This money is being transferred under various titles as gifts, loans or empowerments. The All Progressives Congress is taking advantage of the poverty among the people. But we want to tell them that this type of arrangement can never bring economic prosperity to the people of the state.

“We want these people involved in this scam to know that what they are doing amounts to diverting Kwara State government money to fund political and partisan activities. They should know that when they hide, their backside is there in the open. All the things they are doing are being tracked.”

The DG PDP Campaign Council, who said the alleged voter inducement was coupled with subtle threat to political appointees, civil servants and traditional rulers, added that beneficiaries were told to toe the line or get punished.

The PDP, which appealed to people in the state to take the token they were being given, advised them to vote for the PDP and its governorship candidate, Alhaji Yaman Abdullahi, in the March 18 governorship election.

But the government, in a swift reaction, denied the allegation, claiming that the opposition party was lying that the APC was using government money to buy the voters for the elections.

A statement by the state Commissioner for Finance and the spokesperson for the APC Campaign Council in the state, Mrs Florence Oyeyemi, read that there was no truth whatsoever in the claims of the PDP, adding that the party was notorious for its reckless claims and penchant for outright falsehood.

Oyeyemi said, “The PDP is chasing shadows and engaging in false equivalence, thinking everyone acts in bad faith as they did while in government and still do even in opposition.

“These are the same people who celebrated the cash policy in their simplistic thinking that it would make people forget their atrocities in government and elect them back to public offices.”