AHMADU ALI AND THE PTDF SCANDAL

By SALIU IYANDA <saliuiyanda2010@yahoo.com> Sept 25, 2005

There seems to be no end to the festering polemics as it concerns the use to which the PTDF funds were put to. From all indications, the EFCC and the kangaroo administrative panel reports did not do a thorough job. They deliberately glossed over very germane issues particularly if it has to do with people that are in the good books of president Olusegun Obasanjo or those that are his jolly political co-travelers, but if lies hold sway for a long time, truth will prevail at the end of the day, so even Ahmadu Ali also benefited from the PTDF, the fund made a donation of N5million to support Ali on the occasion of the award of honorary doctoral degree at the Federal University of Agriculture,Markudi, and when the fund discovered that its scam has be exposed to the public it hurriedly said that it wrote Ali to refund the money, which is clearly an afterthought, this is more so that Ahmadu Ali had earlier denied ever receiving any money from PTDF, hence, it stands to reason that if he had denied before now that no money was ever given to him, then he hadn’t pay back, because if he had paid back there will be no need to deny, he would have acknowledged he erred and apologized accordingly, this was not the case.

Contrary to the often trumpeted remarks from the camp of the president that the vice has been indicted by the duo kangaroo reports, the vice president did not benefit one kobo from the PTDF money rather the money invested in the ETB as brought interest to the fund. The ones in TIB is safe with Spring Bank the new owners of the bank. The vice president has never been indicted for any abuse of power by any competent law court of law, till then any reference in this direction is nothing but an exercise in futility.

If the president knows he is very sincere, honest and straightforward, let him give a presidential order that all the bank statement of accounts of the controversial accounts be published for the public to see, so that, the public will see and know those who lodged and collected money from the accounts. If only the president can do this, all the wrangling will be laid to rest once and for all, but the president does not want to do this at all and Nigerians do not seem to really understand his game plan.

The president does not want to go come May 2007, to this end, he and his political co-travelers have gone to INEC to register a new political party called Accord Party, and the only person that could pose a very serious challenge to his inordinate political ambition is vice president Atiku Abubakar, hence, he must be stopped at all cost so that, Obasanjo can have his way. It is because politics in Nigeria has been reduced to this pedestrian level by the president that the all important issue of governance has been relegated to the background, to the president, he feels he is more important than the whole country put together, and that is the dilemma of the Nigerian state today.

By

Saliu Iyanda

Ilorin, KWARA STATE.