Senator Yakubu Lado Danmarke, governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and Dr Mustapha Muhammad Inuwa, Director General of the Atiku/Lado Campaign Council, have been charged in court for alleged mismanagement and diversion of N2 billion allocated for the Presidential and National Assembly elections in Katsina State.
On Wednesday, the beleaguered Interim Chairman of the party, Salisu Lawal Uli, and several of the party’s Local Government Chairmen filed an ex-parte application before the Katsina State High Court.
The appellants asked the court to order the two to account for more than N1.05 billion of the N2 billion allocated by the party’s presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, during the presidential and national assembly elections held in 2015.
In a statement, the Katsina PDP Legal Adviser, Mustapha Shittu Mahuta esq, claimed the action was brought in response to multiple complaints from party agents across the state’s 34 LGAs and 6652 wards that they had not been paid their travel allowances and other logistics.
Uli, who also talked to DRILLOGIST about the situation, claimed that the duo’s alleged mishandling and diversion of cash was to blame for the party’s dismal performance in the recently finished Presidential and National Assembly elections.
“His Excellency, Atiku Abubakar provided the presidential/gubernatorial Campaign Committee for Katsina State with N2 billion for election operations,” Uli stated.
“We estimate that barely about N900 million was spent on logistics such as agent payment, transportation, food allowances, and so on.”
“If you divide the N2 billion by the 6,652 polling units across the 34 LGAs in the state, that will amount to N300,000 per polling unit but instead they gave out 70,000 and even in some places, they gave out N40,000 to 50,000.
“So, we want them to account for the money and return the balance to His Excellency, Atiku Abubakar since they did not work as expected. If they did, PDP would have won Katsina with a wider margin in the presidential election.”
