PDP CHIEFTAIN DENIES GRAFT CHARGE AGAINST OGBULAFOR

Former organizing secretary of the Peoples Democratic Parety (PDP), Alhaji Dahiru Umar yesterday denied allegation of graft he made against the party National Working Committee.

Playing to the gallery during the meeting of the Peoples Democratic Party Reform Forum held last month, at the NICON Luxury Hotel, Umaru had alleged to the consternation of members seated that over N4 billion left in the coffers of the party by Dr Ahmadu Ali and inherited by the current National Working Committee could not be accounted for.

But speaking with journalists yesterday at Wadata Plaza after a closed-door meeting with the national chairman of the PDP, and members of his NWC, Dahiru denied the statement credited to him. He said he was quoted in error by newsmen.

'I have given them enough explanation; I never said N4 billion was left. I said clearly that N4 billion was generated out of which N1 billion was donated at the fund raising meeting in Sheraton to the construction of the permanent secretariat and the balance was used for congresses and convention. The balance left, I don't know because I wasn't the national treasurer, I was not the national auditor, I wasn't the financial secretary. All I know was that we generated about N4 billion.'

He, however, denied that what he told the NWC amounted to recant of what he told a stunned audience at the PDP Reform Forum at the NICON Luxury Hotel last month. 'No, may be some people quoted me wrongly, some quoted me correctly.

The former PDP organizing secretary told journalists that he had kept quiet, because the party went to press to disparage him over the statement.

'If the party didn't go to the press to make contradictory statements, I could have made my own clear. If they had invited me the same day the report was published, I would have honoured their invitation and explained what I said, not what the papers published.

He denied ever tendering any apology to the NWC during the closed-door meeting with Ogbulafor. 'Why should I? I did not say anything wrong, but it has been resolved amicably,' Umaru told newsmen.