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Lawmakers and candidates who contested the Lagos State House of Assembly elections on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) want the leadership of the party to probe the alleged mismanagement of N1 billion campaign funds meant for the 40 constituencies in the state.
The national leadership of the party was said to have released N25 million to each of the 40 legislative constituencies to execute the April 11 house of Assembly elections in the state.
The funds were managed by former Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Musiliu Obanikoro and former Deputy National Chairman of the party, Olabode George.
The candidates alleged that the funds were not released to them to pursue their campaigns for the elections.
Hakeem Bello,, the Minority Leader of Lagos State House of Assembly confirmed that all the candidates that contested the state legislative elections on the PDP platform had petitioned the party national secretariat. to probe how the funds were spent.
According to him, “despite the billions of naira disbursed by the PDP national secretariat to all the state chapters and campaign committees, we did not receive a dime to run for the state assembly election.”
Bello explained that it was after the election we heard that funds were made available to candidates of PDP running for the states House of Assembly election. But up till now, we are still begging if we can get our money back.”
He acknowledged that the forum of candidates that contested the state legislative election “had written series of petitions to both the PDP national secretariat and also to the state chairman. But up till now, we are yet to hear anything from them.
“I can tell you that we have not received a dime for the last campaign. We heard money was budgeted for it. They should come out and tell us what actually happened to the funds that were supposed to be given to the candidates who contested for the Lagos State House of Assembly seats.
“We have written to the party secretariat and they are working on it to see how they can get the funds back from those that embezzled it. We have done our investigation and gotten to the root of where the money got stocked because when we wrote to the national chairman we were referred back to the state chairman to collect our money,” the minority leader said.
But the minority leader ruled out insinuations in some quarters that the PDP lawmakers in the state planned to defect to the All Progressives Congress (APC), noting that there was no such plan by any lawmaker.
He also said the PDP lawmakers were not marginalised in the state assembly, adding that all the lawmakers across political leanings “are one big family. We are in the assembly to represent our people and go about the business of law making.”