The All Progressives Congress (APC) has challenged the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to substantiate allegations it took money from the coffers of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) for its campaign during the 2019 general election.
The APC said the PDP and its co-travellers should provide evidence to back up its allegations both from the FIRS and any other government agency.
National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Lanre Issa- Onilu, in a statement insisted the PDP and others accusing it of seeping hands into the public treasury should also be sure of the figures they are putting in the public domain rather than quoting conflicting figures.
The statement reads: “Regarding some media reports and a statement from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) alleging that a phantom N90 billion or N40 billion was released to the All Progressives Congress (APC) by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) for the Party’s 2019 election political campaigns, the allegation is hogwash.
“The baseless allegations contained in the media reports and the subsequent statement by the PDP is an unintelligent and crude attempt at a smear campaign. Only the sponsors of the report believe their tales.
“We call on the sponsors of the baseless allegation to resolve their confusion. Last time it was N90 billion, now it is N40 billion. We also challenge them to provide evidence from not only FIRS, but any other government agency where the APC took one kobo for campaign.
“The matter of dipping hands into public coffers as a matter of official policy ended with the PDP. We recall that leaders of the PDP had contemplated changing the name of their party at a time because they were ashamed of their own record of sleaze.
“We however refer the PDP and co-peddlers of falsehood to the records of the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) in terms of Cost of Collection accruing to FIRS and indeed the FIRS statement on the subject matter.”
