NWODO LEFT N7BN IN PDP COFFERS - BUHARI
By Emma Ujah, Abuja Bureau Chief
ABUJA - The last National Chairman of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Chief Okwesilieze Nwodo, left N7 billion in its coffers, his Politica Adviser and former Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Alhaji Bala Buhari, has disclosed.
'He left behind a comfortable treasury of about N7 billion,' Buhari said in an interview in Abuja, yesterday.
The former minister added: 'He had planned to use the money in a special project of poverty alleviation to members to give them a sense of belonging. Independent of government, he wanted a programme that would have touched the lives of party members across the country. Dr Nwodo drew this inspiration from the ruling party in South Africa, the ANC.'
He regretted, however, that the National Working Committee, NWC, of the part which resisted Dr. Goodluck Jonathan from being made Acting President in the last days of late President Umaru Yar'Adua saw Nwodo as a stranger and did everything to frustrate his reforms programme.
According to him, Nwodo's reform agenda 'emphasized on the entrenchment of internal democracy. That the process of choosing candidates must be subjected to internal democracy to the dictates of the PDP constitution, and extent rules. With this, the influence of godfathers and godmothers will be completely eliminated.
On how Dr. Nwodo was removed, Buhari said dark forces sold a dummy to the Presidency to the effect that an Enugu Court order had restrained him from being chairman and that he was at the convention ground to create confusion following a brief by the Alhaji Atiku Abubakar camp.
The aide vehemently denied there was any such plan to work against Dr. Jonathan's emergence that day, in the interest of Atiku.
According to him, 'in the morning all through afternoon I was with the Chairman and witnessed what was going on. In the afternoon, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice requested a copy of the constitution of the party which was delivered to him. About this time the National Chairman had already prepared a letter of delegation of responsibility to Dr. Bello Haliru his deputy to preside over the affairs of the special convention.
'Before this time, although the purported court order from Enugu was neither served to him or the party, he still insisted that he will not go to the convention ground.'
At worst as painful as it may be he will only go to the convention, sit down like any ordinary member of the party and watch the proceedings.
'However at about 4:00pm an in_law to the Enugu Judge came and informed him that the court order had been vacated, he even spoke to the judge. Because of the difficulty in getting the hard copy of the vacated court order, security agencies were involved to go to the high court in Enugu to get the hard copy. At the same time there was breaking news on AIT that the court order served on the national chairman of PDP had been vacated. He also spoke with the Attorney General. He finally made up his mind to go to the convention ground.
'The National Legal Adviser on the convention ground also confirmed that the party top hierarchy has not received the first court order stopping the national chairman from parading himself as the national chairman nor the one vacating it
'Just to make the matter worse, the same people that showed disdain for Dr. Nwodo insinuated that he went to the convention ground to give Atiku Abubakar a leeway to void the convention. This was the dummy that was sold to the authority. Looking at the sequence of events you will all agree with me that this is not correct at all'.