Further to our last press release of 21st December, 2018 alerting Nigerians to the fraudulent attempt by the All Progressives Congress to access funds from the Central Bank of Nigeria under the Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP) for their campaigns, we have obtained additional insider information indicating that the Central Bank of Nigeria and NIRSAL (Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agriclutural Lending) are insidiously mobilizing funds for President Muhammadu Buhari’s failed re-election attempt. We therefore wish to alert Nigerians to this ongoing fraud and urge them to ask if President Buhari has now become the grand patron of corruption by resorting to the CBN to fund his re-election campaign.
We note that the CBN itself, has stated that only about 850,000 farmers have benefited from the ABP program since its inception. We, therefore, wonder where the figure of 12 million farmers under the ABP program emanated from and how these farmers are donating fictitious amounts, which are being mobilized by CBN and NIRSAL. Interestingly, our checks and information provided to us by patriotic Nigerians in the Central Bank, who are well acquainted with the ABP indicate that the debt recovery rate under the ABP is less than 25% of beneficiaries, we then wonder how farmers, who are unable to repay loans are suddenly mobilising billions for a Government, whose policies have further impoverished them. We are aware of disputes between farmers and the CBN and NIRSAL, including laws suits on the recovery of loans under ABP and we therefore ask discerning Nigerians to investigate and find out who is actually giving APC N1.2 billion. We challenge the CBN to controvert our findings by publishing the full list of beneficiaries, amount disbursed, and actual recoveries made, which will put a big lie to the supposed success of the ABP. it is instructive to note that a report in June, 2018 exposed the fraud that has characterised the ABP and Nigerians are now aware that the ABP has been turned into slush fund by the APC led government.
On the claim by the Fertilizers Producers and Suppliers Association Nigeria (FEPSAN) that they are donating N570 million to the campaign of President Muhammadu Buhari, we wish to inform Nigerians, that this is a direct transfer of money from the CBN to the President’s campaign using FEPSAN as a cover, Under the Presidential Initiative on Fertilizer, FEPSAN members get a margin of only N500 on each bag of fertilizer produced, and they have been clamoring for an upward review of this margin, yet suddenly the same organization is able to mobilize N570m for the APC. Are we to believe that the members of the organization are able to give up the margins on 1,140,000 bags of fertilizer to the coffers of a failed political party? Rather we have information that companies linked to a top executive of FEPSAN have been receiving grants, loans and direct funding from the CBN and NIRSAL, parts of which are now being transferred to the APC. We also challenge CBN and NIRSAL to controvert our findings here and we will provide names and amounts transferred to this company.
More interesting is that the Chairman of FEPSAN, Mr. Thomas Etuh is a major beneficiary of funds from the CBN. As Nigerians know, Mr. Etuh and his company Tak Continental Limited, were recently listed by the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria as one of the top debtors owing N11,585,755,562.89. Is it not logical that Mr. Etuh should be more concerned about paying his debts than donating monies he clearly doesn’t have to APC’s presidential campaign. We hope AMCON is taking note of this as well, so they can at least recover the N570 million supposedly donated by Mr. Etuh to APC.
Nigerians will recall that under the government of President Goodluck Jonathan, the Ministry of Agriculture supervised by Mr. Akinwunmi Adesina cleaned the augean stable of fertilizer racketeering, unfortunately the APC government under a dubious Presidential Fertilizer Initiative (PFI) has brought back the ugly years of the past in under to find an excuse for embezzling government funds. We demand that the Government account for the operations of the PFI and publish audited financial statements, if indeed they have nothing to hide.
In all, we have seen a pattern and we alert Nigerians to note that in the coming days, more of such organisations, will come forward donating humongous amounts to the President’s campaign, we are tracking these funds and when the PDP comes to power in May, 2019, we will recover these funds and return them to the Nigerian people. We urge the CBN, NIRSAL and all other government agencies to be circumspect about their involvement in partisan politics and in particular, we wish to request that President Buhari come out and publicly refuse these amounts, which are proceeds of corruption, otherwise Nigerians will be left with no option but to conclude that he has now become the Grand Patron of Corruption in Nigeria.
