APC leadership did not fund Kwara campaign, says Wambai

By Emmanuel Oladesu, Deputy Editor

The National Headquarters of the All Progressives Congress (APC) did not give Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq N1 billion to run his campaign in 2019, the party’s former Vice Chairman for North Central, Suleiman Wambai, clarified yesterday.

Speaking on the recent controversy on campaign funds in Kwara State, Wambai said the funds the party sent to Kwara and other states were for election logistics such as payment for polling agents, supervisors and canvassers.

“That particular money came with a specific template of distribution and various stakeholders, including national officers, were involved in its disbursement. The candidate, like his colleagues in other states, took delivery of the said funds but that was all. Its disbursement followed a template that the party had earlier approved.

“As the chairman of the party in the Northcentral, I was to be there, but I couldn’t possibly be in all the North Central states at the same time. In any case, we had a national officer of the party, the National Publicity Secretary, who is from Kwara State. We did not have any complaints from Kwara or any other state that the said fund was mismanaged. It was used for the purpose it was meant for,” Wambai told reporters in Abuja.

He said the allegation by the party’s former state chairman, Bashir Omolaja Bolarinwa, that the governor did not disclose the fund sent to him was “definitely false because the disbursement was transparently done. Otherwise, where did the money paid to our party agents, supervisors, canvassers came from? The reports from Kwara and elsewhere showed that all the polling agents and others that were meant to be paid were duly paid as designed.”

Wambai clarified that Kwara did not get up to one billion naira and whatever that came was disbursed in accordance with the template from the national headquarters of the party.

“This matter can only generate controversy out of ignorance. If they were aware of the restrictions the electoral laws impose on campaign fund donations, they wouldn’t be saying that,” he added.