By Adekunle Jimoh, Ilorin

Members of Kwara Assembly have denied Minister of Information and Culture Lai Mohammed sponsored their campaign in 2019.

They described as baseless and unfounded a claim by the Minister that he funded their

They said the only individual who could claim to offering them massive support during the election was Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq who was the APC governorship candidate at that time.

Speaker Yakubu Danladi-Salihu told reporters in Ilorin, Kwara state capital the Minister did not in any form support the then APC Assembly candidates.

Represented by Deputy Speaker, Raphael Adetiba, Danladi-Salihu, explained Mohammed was nowhere to be found at every point of the campaigns and election that produced the Ninth Assembly.

He said the Minister’s claim to have personally funded their election is farther from the truth.

According to him: “We ordinarily should have ignored the Minister and took it as another lie from Lai Mohammed but for the unsuspecting members of the public and posterity, the record needs to be set straight,” he said, flanked by several members of the Assembly.

“Lai Mohammed did not give any support in any form to members of the 9th legislature during the campaign and election; if he did, he should name who and what he gave out. Could the Minister be mixing things up on account of his old age?” he said.

“For God knows reason, Lai Mohammed did not participate in any of our campaigns and did not also contribute financially to it. It was the then Governorship candidate of our party, the APC, who supported our campaigns all through.

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“For the records, all the twenty-four members of the House of Assembly received financial support from His Excellency Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq for the purpose of prosecuting the House of Assembly election, so Lai Mohammed should please stop telling lie to the people.

“Apart from the governorship candidate (His Excellency Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq), the other support was the sum of N500, 000 each that we received from the national headquarters of our party, APC.

“Other than that, it was the Governor who funded our expenses including logistics, souvenirs, posters and other campaign materials. Even so, at no time did the Governor go about telling anyone that he funded our campaign.

“It is also laughable that Lai Mohammed could claim to have personally raised money to finance the 2019 general elections in Kwara State.

“The question that would readily come to mind is: What is Lai’s contribution to his own Ward, Local Government, District and Kwara in general to have earned him respect and reputation for people to trust him and donate money to him.”

House of Representatives member AbdulRaheem Olawuyi also described as frivolous, baseless and wild the allegation leveled against him by the Minister of embezzling N70 million from the 2018 by-election campaign fund.

He said such allegation only exists in the imagination of the Minister, while accusing Mohammed of being economical with the truth, petty and resorting to politics of pull him down.

Giving details by the details of what transpired, Olawuyi stated a North Central Governor reached out to him on personal ground to donate toward the 2018 by-election but when the Minister got wind of the donation, he immediately reached out to him asking him to bring the money.

“However, I immediately contacted a few of our trusted party elders to intimate them of the development, but they counselled me against sending the money to the Minister based on his antecedents with money,” he alleged.

He added: “On my own, I personally gave Alhaji Lai Muhammed the sum of N32.5m, with the full knowledge of the former party chairman, Bashiru Bolarinwa, for election purposes; the minister and Bashir Bolarinwa cannot deny this except there is no conscience left.”