The blogosphere was inundated with reports of the excessive sharing of dollars at the All Progressives Congress which took place during the latter part of last week.
One APC supporter and Special Adviser to Osun Governor on Environment, BolaIlori had blown the scandal open after he saw the beginning stages of the dollarization in action.
He took to his Facebook page and scribbled, “Crazy things are happening here!!! Some of these cannot represent the change Nigeria is yearning for. Excessive dollarization by one of the aspirants to is to say the least obscene. I have been involved in political process for decades now, I have never witnessed this volume of raw dollarization of party primaries. I only read about this kind of things in PDP primaries. A question been asked by conscientious delegates is that whoever can be giving out between $2000 to $5000 to…delegates certainly does not represent the kind of change Nigerians want…those who contributed to the pauperization of Nigeria now revel in dollarization… majority of Ondo delegates are still standing with Buhari but have been reduced from 85% to 70% within 24 hours…the remaining has gone with dollars ooo.!!!!!”
One has to wonder how Buhari was able to win the primaries in this era of stomach infrastructure where dollars are like the Biblical manna that God sent down from heaven to nourish the Israelites as they made their way to the promised land.
Sources close to the APC with knowledge of the way the Primaries unfolded have revealed that it was Rivers State Governor, Amaechi who flew back to Rivers State and returned to Lagos on Thursday morning with enough dollars to make Benjamin Franklin blush.
It has been revealed that Atiku offered the delegates $5000 each, but Amaechi doubled it to $10000 a pop. Thus turning the tables in favour of General Buhari.
Since his adventure into the APC, Amaechi has gone out of his way to prove himself a party loyalist, always the first to shoki or azonto at the many events the APC holds, which he himself is usually the chief sponsor.
According to party insiders, Amaechi has overtaken Tinubu as the major financier of the party. One does not need to wonder why he is always at President Jonathan’s throat over misappropriated oil wells or other such business. Anything that diminishes from the State’s coffers will have a ripple effect on his funding budget for the APC.
Joe Francis wrote in from Port Harcourt.