Nathaniel Zacchaeus, Abuja
Investigations by ThisNigeria revealed that the lavish spender is an aspirant from the North who is reportedly sending hard currencies to the newly elected federal lawmakers, in order to curry their support.
*Super-rich Northern aspirant fingered, as senators-elect get juicy packages
The super-rich aspirant was said to have sent $30,000 to each of the senators-elect in two instalments.
He was said to have initially distributed $10,000 immediately after the senators-elect collected their certificates of return while the second instalment of $20,000 was distributed penultimate week.
Further investigations also revealed that the same aspirant from the North-West geopolitical zone had set aside N2.2bn that would be lavished on the senators-elect.
He was said to have set up his campaign office at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel in Abuja where he had reportedly booked about 120 suites to be given free to each of the senators-elect.
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The aspirant according to sources close to him, had vowed to contest the Senate President position whether the APC leadership’s zoning arrangements favour them or not.
Further checks also revealed that a newly elected senator from Bauchi State was being used to distribute the dollar gifts to his colleagues while another member of the House of Representatives was the contact person that is reaching out to the returning senators,
An aide of the northern aspirant, who spoke with ThisNigeria on conditions of anonymity, said it is most likely that the position of the Senate President would be zoned to the North-West because of the volume of votes that the APC got from the region in the just concluded Presidential Election.
He said, “My principal is not waiting for the APC zoning arrangements before hitting the ground running. He has started reaching out to all the stakeholders within and outside the National Assembly.
“We recorded the highest number of votes for the APC on the presidential election and by right, we should be allowed to produce the Senate President.
“The South West had produced the President-Elect, while the North East got the Vice President-Elect. The next region with a high volume of votes is the North-West, which must automatically produce the Senate President.
“I do not see any reason the APC would not zone Senate Presidency to the North West. Those who are canvassing either South East or South-South should know that APC did not get the required votes from the regions.”
Several calls put across to the aspirant from the North-West were not responded to as of the time of filling this report.
He did not also reply to the text message sent to him.
*Anti-corruption groups kick
Several anti-graft groups had called on the federal agencies that are fighting corruption in the country to go after any aspirant currently involved in vote buying.
For instance, the Campaign for Democracy, (CD) in a statement by its National President, Ifeanyi Odili, had called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practice and Other Offences Commission (ICPC), to thoroughly probe the alleged bribery.
The CD said, “We have it through our impeccable source that a ranking senator had started using his ill-gotten wealth to woo the returning senators and the new members who had collected their certificates of return from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
“The aspirant was said to be distributing dollars and other hard currencies in other to win the newcomers’ votes when electing the presiding officers of the National Assembly.
“If we allow politicians to use the money to induce the newly elected members of the 10th National Assembly, the nation will not get it right again. We are afraid that such practice could plunge the nation into another round of quagmire.
“The leadership of the National Assembly will not be able to join hands with the Executive to fight corruption headlong since they are products of corruption. It takes a corrupt Senator to lobby positions with money.
“The EFCC and the ICPC should, as a matter of urgency, swing into action and probe the disturbing phenomenon to save our nascent democracy.
“The anti-graft agencies must also ensure that no Senator that is facing corruption charges or has pending court cases is allowed to take a sensitive position in the 10th Senate.
“All aspirants must all be thoroughly checked and cleared before they are allowed to contest any of these sensitive positions, most importantly, that of the Senate President.
“Most worrisome, some of the Senators are still having cases at the courts ranging from money laundering and other corruption cases.
“This, we are poised to resist, if we must rid Nigeria of corruption which has become very endemic in our body system. We want Senators whose track records at the Senate are unblemished.
“We wonder why an aspirant who is already giving out dollars failed to queue behind the zoning arrangements which will give room for equity, fairness, and Justice.
“Drawing from the above, the anti-graft agencies must live up to people’s expectations by moving in and foreclosing any possibility of turning the 10th Senate into a den of corruption.
“It is critical to note that Senate presidency and other sensitive positions are not for sale if we want the nation to come out of its economic doldrums: stagnation or depression.”
Similarly, a civil society organisation (CSO), the Adopt a Goal for National Development Initiative (AGNDI) also raised the alarm over bribery allegations ravaging the Campaign Organisation of one of the aspirants for the 10th Senate Presidency.
The group in a statement by its Director of Programme, Victor Martins, said the allegation was a weighty one that must not be swept under the carpet.
Part of the statement read, “We are shocked with reports accusing an aspirant for the position of the Senate Presidency of bribing senators-elect with the sum of $30,000 to curry their favours.
“The aspirant has been accused of boasting that he would stop at nothing in getting the highly coveted seat no matter what it would cost, including guile.
“We, therefore, call on all the anti-corruption agencies to swing into action by investigating this allegation and bring the culprit to book if found guilty.
“We also call on the President-elect Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to be very circumspect in choosing whom to support for leadership positions in the parliament as all eyes are on him to clean the nation’s Aegean stables under his watch.”
*Akpabio denies withdrawal from race
Meanwhile, speculations as to the withdrawal of Senator Godswill Akpabio from the Senate Presidency race are completely unfounded sources in his camp disclosed yesterday as some alluded to a dirty campaign supposedly orchestrated by supporters of his rival, Senator Orji Uzor Kalu.
The rebuttal came in the wake of reports yesterday that Akpabio was considering stepping down from the race in favour of brightening his chances as Minister of Niger Delta Affairs in the Bola Tinubu administration.
Associates of Akpabio rejected the claims, saying that the reports were fuelled by the Orji Kalu camp, which according to the Akpabio sources, believes that the Akwa Ibom senator is the biggest opposition to the Senate presidency aspiration of the outgoing Senate Chief Whip.
A statement issued by Femi Odere, convener of the Godswill Project.
It states, “Our attention has been drawn to the concoction making the rounds as news that the two-term former governor of Akwa Ibom State, a former Senate Minority Leader, and a senator who will soon commence his second term in the 10th National Assembly His Excellency Senator Godswill Akpabio has dropped out of the race for the Senate President.
“It may not have been necessary to dignify this jejune, insidious, and mischievous piece of information with a response if only because of the glaring inconsistencies and lack of empirical evidence that characterised the so-called withdrawal of the uncommon Nigerian political leader.
“But respond we must because of the Senator’s teeming supporters across the length and breadth of Nigeria, including Nigerians in the diaspora who has, and continues, to inundate us with calls and messages to ascertain the veracity of this mischievous informa
tion hence this clarification.
“We’re making it abundantly clear that at no time did Senator Godswill Akpabio entertain the thought of withdrawing from the Senate presidency race, let alone an actual withdrawal. The purveyors of this badly constructed piece of information have their thinking apparatuses at the soles of their feet, otherwise, why would someone who’s a frontrunner for the number three position in the country’s political leadership jettison this political pursuit only to “be pursuing a ministerial appointment” of the same ministry which was given to him on a platter in the recent past, a position in which he acquitted himself creditably well with superlative accomplishments. Does that make any sense?
“The allusion that Senator Akpabio dropped his bid for the Senate President “because of the decision of the ruling APC to zone the position to the South-East” is at best an impossible prayer of these purveyors of falsehood that the position of Senate president would be the exclusive preserve of the southeast region in the 10th National Assembly. Nothing can be farther from the truth than this.
“Even if we must indulge the purveyors of this misinformation to wallow in their delusion that only the senators-elect from the southeast extraction would the party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) allow to contest the senate presidency, it’s curious why they included Senators Jibrin Barau (APC, Kano North); Sani Musa (APC, Niger East), Ali Ndume (APC, Borno South), former Governor of Zamfara State, Abdulaziz Yari (APC, Zamfara West) among the contestants.
“It is totally untrue and most certainly a figment of their imagination that Senator Akpabio, “told his loyalists and aides to tone down their campaign for his senate presidential ambition in the media to soften the ground to achieve his ministerial reappointment in Tinubu’s cabinet.” If anything, Senator Akpabio’s coast is getting larger by the day with the support and endorsement he continues to garner in his bid for the Senate President.
“The chill that Akpabio’s ambition has sent down the spines of some contestants can be understood because they know that the only way for them to have a fighting chance in this race is either to de-market Senator Akpabio or find an avenue, however egregious, to knock him out of the race. It’s therefore inconceivable that they will engage in all manners of propaganda and subterfuge with the hope that something would stick to the senator to beat.
“The senator’s popularity is not only very strong among his colleagues in the red chamber but also among Nigerians at large. Senator Akpabio was widely known as the “uncommon governor” in his eight years as the governor of Akwa Ibom because of his unprecedented achievements. He would no doubt be a rare Senate President in the 10th National Assembly because of the robust, growth-enhanced, development-driven legislation that would become the hallmark of the coming Tinubu administration.”
