- Fund meant to stop Jonathan, says PDP
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Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has said that some Arab Sheiks have come to the rescue of the All Progressives Congress, APC, presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, whose campaign organisation has been hit by serious financial crisis.
Nigerian Pilot learnt that soon after the postponement of the general elections, the APC two major financiers had stopped further release of funds to Buhari, which forced him to seek external support.
Their actions affected several advertisement of the party which disappeared from the media.
The party also stopped all campaign activities and resorted to holding town hall meetings across the six geo-political zones.
All that is now over, as Buhari reportedly received the sum of $700million from some Arab Sheiks to continue his campaigns.
Sources confirmed that soon as words came in that the Arab funding was ready, the APC’s media machineries were asked to preempt it in the media by alleging that the PDP planned to accuse the opposition party of receiving dollars from the Arab world.
The PDP, through its presidential campaign organisation spokesman, Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode, alluded to this yesterday when it said that Buhari was being covertly funded and supported by shady foreign interests from the Arab world with an “agenda of insurgency, butchery, murder, division and strife to take power in this Nigeria.”
At a press conference in Abuja yesterday, the ruling party said that APC had produced a nine-minute hate video “to denigrate the powers that be, to undermine our nation and to incite our people and to bring the president, the government and its officials to disrepute.”
It said the video was intended to incite Nigerians against the federal government with the ultimate aim of pushing the military to take over governance once the APC loses at the polls.
Agency report had claimed that contacts and negotiations for the Arab support were exclusively managed by the closest aides of Gen. Buhari “literally behind the backs of the APC leadership.”
Buhari’s links with one of Arab businessmen identified as Sheikh Yamani allegedly stemmed from his days as Army Colonel and Petroleum Minister under the military administration of Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, during which he represented Nigeria at the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, where Yamani called the shots.
Sheikh Yamani’s connections to Buhari purportedly surfaced when he spearheaded the 1973 OPEC oil embargo targeting Western control of the international oil market but was also highlighted in the events surrounding the 2002 discovery of a document that referred to the ‘Golden Chain’ – an elite club of 20 Saudi billionaires whom Osama bin Laden was said to have identified as his top financiers in launching the Al Qaeda terrorist organisation.
The PDP alleged that the documentary, copy of which is in its possession, contains a lot of foreign footage which suggests that there is an international dimension to the production.
“This confirms our fears and belief that the APC is being sponsored primarily by money from foreign countries and by agents of foreign governments that are hostile to the interest of our beloved nation, Nigeria. We also believe that some shady groups in the Middle East may well have a hand in the funding of this video production and in the construction and conjuring up of these baseless allegations.
“Worst of all, the producers of this video were attempting to incite the Nigerian people against the Nigerian government. They went as far as to suggest that when the presidential election is fought and won and President Goodluck Jonathan emerges as the winner, that the people should call for a full scale military intervention rather than allowing Jonathan to come back. They also specifically asked for the targeting and assassination of key members of this administration and a number of its supporters in the event of a Jonathan victory in the coming elections.
“We say in clear terms that the video in question and the intentions of those behind it is reprehensible, irresponsible and it is unacceptable. We wish to take this opportunity to let the APC know that under no circumstances will we allow them to rob us of our legitimate mandate which, hopefully, will be legitimately and freely given to the President by the Nigerian people on March 28th.”
He vowed that the PDP would not tolerate any act of violence or any attempt to assassinate anybody by their agents in the event of PDP winning, and neither would the people of this country ever allow another military intervention.
“As a party we are committed to the democratic process. We believe that that is the only way forward. The president is committed to democracy and any attempt to bring about any form of unconstitutional government into the affairs of our nation by the APC after they have lost this election will not be successful. We will resist it with the last drop of our blood. We will protect the mandate that will be given to us by the Nigerian people to the last man.
“We must not allow any political party that is being covertly funded and supported by shady foreign interests with an agenda of insurgency, butchery, murder, division and strife to take power in this country. We must not allow a man like Gen. Muhammadu Buhari to set us back. We must always resist their attempts to incite people to violence. We must resist their attempt to prepare for war in the event of their losing and we must resist their attempt to demean and abuse the democratic process and set us back many years in this country,” he said.