The Truth About the Presidential Campaign Funds, By Femi Fani-Kayode

“The truth is like a lion. You don’t have to defend it. Let it lose and it will defend itself” – St. Augustine.

For the last few weeks I have been the subject of absurd and outlandish headline stories in various newspapers that have accused me of being a fraudster and that have claimed that funds were transferred into my bank account by the former National Security Advisor, Col. Sambo Dasuki and by the Governor of the Central Bank Bank of Nigeria.

They have also claimed that I used public funds for the Presidential campaign of President Goodluck Jonathan.

The attempt to tarnish my name, paint me as a common criminal and convict me of wrongdoing in the court of public opinion without even hearing my side of the story is petty, shameful and nauseating.

It is also a reflection of the desperation of those who seek to pull me down and destroy me simply because my opposition to this government has been unrelenting.

In January 2015, I was appointed as the Director of Media and Publicity for the Jonathan/Sambo Presidential Campaign Organisation by President Goodluck Jonathan.

The Director-General of the Campaign Organisation was Senator Ahmadu Alli and the Deputy Director-Generals were Alhaji Ibrahim Turaki SAN (North) and Governor Peter Obi (South).

Chief Tony Anenih, an elderstatesman and one of the most distinguished and reverred leaders in our country, was the Presidential Advisor to the Campaign Organisation.

There were at least 10 other Directors and Directorates apart from me and mine including the Directorate of Mobilisation, which was led by the respected Professor Jerry Gana and the Directorate of Administration which was led by Alhaji Aliyu Modibbo. There were also zonal and state Directors of the Presidential Campaign Organisation in all the zones and states of the country.

All these names that I have mentioned including all the other Directors whose names I have not mentioned are, as far as I am aware, men and women of immense integrity and good character and they have mostly been either ministers of the Federal Republic or state governors at one time or the other in our history. It was an honour to serve alongside such people and I have absolutely no regrets in doing so.

Yet given the fact that I was not the only Director in the Campaign Organisation and in view of the fact that all the Directors and zonal and state Directors got their funds from the same source and account as I did, one wonders why only I and three others should be singled out for this reprehensible treatment and these false allegations?

I chose to remain silent on the issue up until now simply because the allegations have not been officially made by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) or anyone else, but the newspapers keep citing sources “inside the EFCC” as their basis for these shameful allegations.

Mr. Josef Goebbels, Chancellor Adolf Hitler’s Information Minister when Germany was in the terrible grip of the Nazi party, said that once a lie is repeated enough times it becomes truth to those who are continuously subjected to it. This is especially so if it goes unchallenged.

I cannot sit by silently as my name is dragged through the mud in this way and I am convicted in the court of public opinion. This happened to me once and it took seven years to clear my name. It will not happen to me again.

Consequently I am constrained to take this opportunity to state the facts of this matter, set the record straight and await my traducers and accusers to make their next move. It is indeed time to challenge those who are making these allegations and to kill the lie.

The fact that my bank account was frozen on the orders of the EFCC two weeks ago without any explanation is proof of the fact that I am being targetted and that those who seek to have their wicked way with me are about to pounce.

Given this, it is important that all the relevant facts are put before the world before I am subjected to the Dasuki treatment – put away indefinately and not given the opportunity to defend myself before the public. Meanwhile, in their usual manner, after this is done, the EFCC will then flood the media with all manners of lies about my so-called atrocities which only exist as figments of their imagination.

The allegations of fraud and the receipt of public funds from the National Security Adviser’s Office and the Central Bank into my bank account are false.

These allegations are baseless, wicked, shameful and irresponsible. It is not true that ANY money was paid into my account by or from the National Security Adviser’s Office, the Central Bank of Nigeria or any other government agency or institution last year or at any other time.

As the Director of Media and Publicity of the Jonathan Presidential Campaign Organisation, I was asked to submit a budget for my Directorate by Chief Tony Anenih, the Presidential Adviser to the Presidential Campaign Organisation and Mrs. Nenadi Usman, the Director of Finance.

My team and I prepared a budget and it was approved.

Rather than collect cash, for security reasons and the purposes of accountability, I was advised by the Director of Finance to open a bank account for the task ahead then, which I did.

The funds were paid into that account in installments at the beginning of last year by the Director of Finance and each deposit was authorised and approved by the Presidential Adviser to the PCO, Chief Tony Anenih. The account through which I was transferred money was a private company account which was owned by or under the control of the Director of Finance.

It was the same company and account that was used to send money to all the other Directors of the PCO and the Zonal Directors, State Directors and all our PDP governorship and legislative candidates during the various campaigns.

I made a point of asking what the source of the funds in this account were and I was told by the Director of Finance that the funds were sourced from private individuals and private companies who opted to support and fund President Jonathan’s campaign. She told me that no money was paid into her company from any government official, account or agency. This she told me in the presence of witnesses and I believed her.

I was told that there was a fundraising event held by our party (PDP) which took place in early January 2015 in which billions of naira was raised specifically for the Presidential campaign. I believed this to be true and I had no reason to doubt it.