N90bn allegations against Osinbajo, PDP, media creation, says APC

Nigerian Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo

The All Progressives Congress (APC), on Wednesday described the N90 billion allegations against Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, as the creation of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the media.

According to the party, the allegation that the Vice President collected N90 billion from the Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS) was hogwash from the opposition party.

The Vice President has been in the media over allegation of collecting N90 billion from FIRS to finance the 2019 Presidential election.

But the APC in a statement by its national Publicity Secretary, Lanre Issa – Onilu, dismissed the allegation, just as it said there was no rift between the President, Muhammadu Buhari and his Vice Prof. Osinbajo.

The party also frowned at the allegation that the creation of Economic Advisory Council (ECA) by the President was to whittle down the powers of the Vice President.

“Recently, the media has been awash with an absurd conspiracy of an imagined rift in the presidency, which according to conspirators led to the alleged ‘whittling down’ of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo’s roles in the administration. This happens to be one of the much fake news flying around in recent days.

“Constitutionally, while the power of the Vice President is derived from the President, the conspirators deliberately choose to ignore Section 141 of the Constitution, which spells out the Vice President’s statute membership in the National Security Council, the National Defence Council, Federal Executive Council, and the Chairman of National Economic Council.

“Then, sponsored hogwash reports emanated that the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) gave the Vice President N90billion for the 2019 election — a rejected and disgraceful template of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which saw the party deploy public and counter insurgency funds to finance their political activities during their failed 16-year rule of the country.” The APC statement noted

According to APC, the opposition party could not see the loft policies being introduced by the President

“In our respective and collective efforts to support the development of our country, we cannot afford to fall into the superficial in assessing actions of government.”

On the achievements of the Social Investment Programmme, the APC said, “Since implementation of the N-SIPs in 2016, the programme has impacted over 12 million direct beneficiaries and over 30 million indirect beneficiaries. The SIPs are already gaining global and local acclaims across the globe on account of its nationwide social impact, particularly from endorsement by the Africa Development Bank (AfDB), World Bank, World Economic Forum, Action Aid (Nigeria), Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ) the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) among others.

“The purveyors of the conspiracy theory about the imagined rift in the Presidency have missed the opportunity to see the commendable efforts of this government. Perhaps, if these policies were about the elites, they would have focussed on the positive imports rather than fishing for a crisis that only exists in their fatuous imagination.” the APC statement concluded.

Source: Authority