The Buhari 2015 Support Group Centre on
Sunday flayed the over N21.27bn donated to President Goodluck Jonathan
by businessmen, multinationals and the Peoples Democratic Party
governors to finance his 2015 presidential election campaign.
The oil and gas sector, doled out N5bn;
road and construction, N560m; power, N500m and Chief Tunde Ayeni and
his associates, gave out N2bn at the vent which took place at the
Presidential Villa, Abuja on Saturday.
The group, in a statement on Sunday by
its Director of Publicity, Dr. Chidia Maduekwe, advised the Jonathan
administration to channel the money into the nation’s electricity
sector.
The group is the campaign outfit of the
All Progressives Congress presidential candidate, Maj.Gen. Muhammadu
Buhari. But the APC will this week inaugurate a larger campaign group,
which will be headed by the Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi.
The group said it was disgraceful for
the President and his party to still be talking about improving the
nation’s power sector after spending over $20bn on it.
It said, “Nigerians are worse off in
terms of electricity supply than they were 15 years ago.” It added
that no nation had ever moved from developing to being developed by
relying on generators to power its economy.
The BSGC stressed that it was most
frightening when one juxtaposes the United Nations population
projection of Nigeria by year 2030 (i.e 15years from today) at about 253
million and 400 million by 2050.
“The PDP-led government will only lead Nigeria into a demographic disaster with its current failed energy policy,”
It explained that Buhari and indeed,
other Nigerians were right to ask ‘‘why we are still in this epileptic
electricity mess after spending well over $20bn on the power
sector?’’
The group said Nigerians should be
ashamed that when compared to South Africa’s 40, 000MW for a population
of just 50 million, their country is still struggling to generate
4,000 MW.
It also pointed out that on per capita
consumption basis, Nigeria is ranked at 178th with consumption of
106.21KWh per person, a figure that is well behind Gabon’s 283.6KWh;
Cameroun’s 176.0KWh and Kenya’s 128.68KWh.
The BSGC added, “The power sector
featured proudly two days ago in contributing towards Mr. President
Jonathan’s re-election campaign fund.
“We would have thought such funds should have been better deployed in giving Nigerians better power supply.
“When four years ago Dr. Goodluck
Jonathan said he would not run in 2015, he had then promised that ‘if
voted into power within the next four years, the issue of power will
become a thing of the past. Four years is enough for anyone in power to
make significant improvement and if I can’t improve on power within this
period it then means I cannot do anything even if I am there for
another four years.”
It claimed that “the ordinary Nigerian on
the street knows that he or she is not better off today with
electricity supply as against four years ago when Jonathan mounted the
saddle.”
But the Presidency through the
Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe,
said the group lacked integrity to condemn the donation.
Okupe, who spoke with one of our
correspondents on the telephone added, “We knew before and everyday that
the so-called Buhari group is not a serious organisation. It is made up
of power-mongers with no clear objective programmes for the country.
“They have perfected the act of deception
and glorified falsehood. That’s why they will say Buhari doesn’t have
N1m in his account and he wants to go into a national campaign.
“He wants to get the money for campaign from corrupt politicians and people of questionable character.”
Okupe said what happened at the Presidential Villa on Saturday was normal and done everywhere in the world.
He said, “What we did is done everywhere in the world. What we did was in the open and it was in a transparent manner.
“We know for a fact that Buhari’s funds will come from dubious sources, including corrupt governors.”
On why the President would collect
donations from governors, some of whom are still owing civil servants in
their states , Okupe said it was a case of the pot calling the kettle
black.
He said, “Buhari was sponsored for the
APC primary by Governor Rotimi Amaechi, who unashamedly brought the
treasury of the state to Lagos.
“Yet, he has not paid teachers in the
state for about eight months. APC should stop this pretence and put
their house in order. Nigerians are tired of their propaganda.”
On the call by the BSG that the N21bn
donation be spent on the power sector, Okupe disagreed, saying that the
nation did not lack money to prosecute its power programmes.
The presidential aide said, “The power
road map, the first of its kind in this country, is being pursued
diligently and efficiently and it is being funded legitimately through
the budget for the purpose of accountability.
“The nation does not lack funds for this.”(PUNCH)
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