Mr Kayode Ajulo, the National Secretary of the Labour Party in an
interview with John Alechenu has challenged anyone who accused his party
of collecting N300m from President Jonathan to endorse him as their
presidential candidate in the March 28th presidential
election to come out and prove it. According to Ajulo, President
Jonathan was endorsed for free by his party and no money exchanged hands
at all. Continue...
There is the news making the rounds that your party collected N100m to endorse Jonathan for the 2015 election.
Let me start by saying that this controversy has vindicated the Labour
Party in the sense that immediately after endorsing the President, a lot
of rumours began to go round. Some people said we were given N300m,
some said N1bn and some even said $1bn; as I speak with you as a lawyer –
on my honour – and I am sure because I have a good rapport and a good
relationship with our party chairman, I am not aware that any money
exchanged hands between the Presidency and my party. As the national
secretary of the party, I am the number two person in the party
hierarchy by order of protocol. No money exchanged hands between my
chairman and the party. We have been vindicated. I did not receive any
money from anybody. I challenge anybody who gave me or the party any
amount of money to come out and say I gave Kayode Ajulo money for the
election. Even when the allegation that a presidential aide was given
money for our party came up, we read it in the papers like everybody
else. I called my chairman and we held a meeting and resolved to get to
the bottom of it. We are still trying to get where the whole thing is
coming from. We, as members of the Labour Party, condemn inducement of
any party. Whatever is to be given to the party must be in tandem with
the Electoral Act.
Mr Kayode Ajulo also condemned a statement credited to APC that they had
shut their doors to defecting politicians from other parties,
especially PDP.
This is clearly a violation of the constitution. We are all aware when
they (APC) applied to the Independent National Electoral Commission for
registration. One of the conditions you have to meet before you are
registered is that you have to subscribe to all the provisions of the
constitution. In fact, every Nigerian political party is a product of
the constitution and part of your undertaking is that you subscribe to
the provisions of the constitution. For you to now start threatening to
shut your door against people is a complete violation of that provision.
A political party is not the property of any individual and that is why
you have INEC regulating you. Everybody has a right of ingress and
egress with certain conditions. You cannot say because somebody is
coming today you want to shut your door. It is when a person misbehaves
or violates some of your rules and regulations after becoming a member
that you can now show them the way out either by suspension or expulsion
– depending on the gravity of the offence. To now use a blanket cover
to block some people, I think the party has overreached itself.