By Zik Gbemre
With regards to the PDP Presidential Primary, which was nothing short of an economic/business summit that kicked of on Saturday October 6th,2018 to Sunday October 7th,2018, we termed it so because it portrayed the highest level of corruption, where it is alleged that Presidential aspirants like Atiku, Saraki, Tambuwal and others, dished out different amounts of US Dollars ranging from 9,000, 5,000, 4,000, 3,000 and 2,500 US Dollars to each delegate, which comprised of about 150 delegates from each the of the 36 States of the country – that is about 5,400 delegates, plus that of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
This is the height of corruption to say the least. It is being alleged that every delegate collected US Dollars of different amounts from all the PDP Presidential aspirants to vote whomever they feel obligated to vote for as they so please, and it was the same with the States and National Assemblies’ levels election primaries.
One begins to wonder and ask, has the PDP not learnt their lessons from past experiences? From the look of things, it appears they haven’t. If they have learnt any lesson, then how will the said Presidential aspirants expects to scale through this hurdles and be able to get back their ‘political investments’? And if they are being financed by ‘political entrepreneurs,’ how will they reap their harvests in triple folds? But most importantly, are these the kind of politicians that will unsit the APC Government, and continue their looting as usual as being alleged? How on earth will such people that will come out from such a corrupt-ridden process be able to help the country?
It is even more sad that they are alleged to be using hard foreign currency of the US Dollars. No more the use of Nigerian the Naira to buy delegates in their favour, they have now graduated and developed to the use of Dollars. What a shame!
If the Nigerian people don’t reject these people, then they are on the way to mortgaging the entire future of the populace. If you go to most social gatherings/social events today, you will see lots of children lurking around at the event looking for food remnants to eat, which they often gather in paper bags to take home for their entire family to feed on for that day. That is the growing level of hardship, hunger and poverty in the land, especially in all the rural villages and the urban towns/ cities in the South-South.
The question is, where did Atiku, Saraki, Tambuwal, etc get the alleged US Dollars being shared from? It’s really a shame on the PDP, as a supposed opposition political party. They have made their recent convention/PDP Presidential Primary more of a gang of ‘political rascals’ bidding amongst themselves to see who can spread the highest amount of money to win the day. Perhaps, they should ask themselves, will US Presidential aspirants/politicians pay their delegates in Naira? Such act alone in the US will disqualify the said aspirant, especially for using foreign currency to allegedly bribe delegates.
But sadly here in Nigeria, the PDP, as usual, has made this bad practice a norm. What a big shame! No reasonable Presidential candidate will spend US Dollars to buy delegates, that is with the intention of running a credible government.
Zik Gbemre
Sunday, October 7,2018
