Following the heightened criticism against President Muhammadu Buhari’s secret declaration of assets as against his campaign promise to make public his assets, reports have come to light to reveal that Buhari who claimed to be unable to buy the March 28 Presidential form is set to declare an estimated N879 million in assets.
Dr. Katchi Ononuju a Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Chieftain who first spoke to the African Independent Television, AIT, correspondents and later to Post Nigeria authoritatively stated that Buhari had a lot to explain as the APC was making frantic efforts to give the President a soft landing on the matter.
He stated that the APC was secretly sending copies of the the President’s asset declaration, to strong critics of his secret declaration.
According to Ononuju; “An e-mail which emanated from the office of the President is set to declare almost a billion Naira in assets.
“This is a major reason why the President has decided not to declare his assets because the APC is hiding under the pretense that Buhari is broke and could not pay for his presidential form.”
He went ahead to state that the National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed and the Governor of Kaduna State, Malam Nasir El-Rufai called him via telephone pleading with him not to unravel the mystery behind the secret declaration of assets by President Buhari as against his earlier electoral promise.
President Buhari who claimed to be “broke”, took a bank loan of N27 million to purchase the APC presidential nomination form to contest the 2015 general election.
Buhari had lamented the high cost of the nomination form, but said that he was fired by his ambition to procure a bank loan, through the assistance of an unnamed bank Chairman.
The ex-military dictator stated that it took the understanding of his bankers in Kaduna and Abuja to raise the money.
“It’s a pity I couldn’t influence this amount to be put down as in the case of ladies and the disabled that intend to participate. I always looked left and right in our meetings but I could not read sympathy, so I kept my trap shut.
“But I felt heavily sorry for myself because I don’t want to go and ask somebody to pay for my nomination forms, because I always try to pay myself, at least for the nomination.
“N27 million is a big sum, thankfully I have a personal relationship with the manager of my bank in Kaduna and early this morning, I put an early call (and) I told him that very soon the forms are coming, so, whether I am on red, or green or even black please honour it, otherwise I may lose the nomination,” Buhari had stated.
Before the last general election, Buhari tactically revealed his assets “I have at least one million Naira in my bank, having paid N5.5 million to pick my form from my party.
‘’I have around 150 cattle because I am never comfortable without cows. I have a house each in Kaduna, Kano, and Daura which I borrowed money to build. I never had a foreign account since I finished my courses in the USA, India and the UK. I never owned any property outside Nigeria, never.”
A cross section of Nigerians who responded to the alleged N879 million Buhari asset declaration noted that the President might have been fooling Nigerians by having said that did not have the sum of N27 million to acquire the presidential nomination form.
“If that is true that he has no money, how come he is set to declare almost 1 billion Naira in assets in less than seven months?” a political commentator queried before adding “the secret declaration of assets by Buhari shows that Buhari has a skeleton in his cupboard’’
Hajiya Aishatu Buhari, who had donated drugs worth N135m to the Internally Displaced Persons camps in Adamawa State, during the period her husband, Buhari, made it clear to the world that he had no money to purchase presidential nomination form.
Following the harsh criticism which escorted the President and Vice’s decision to secretly declare their assets, the Presidency late last week, decided to make the declaration public, only after verification by the Code of Conduct Bureau, CCB, a process that can take up to 100 days after taking office.
Major supporters of the APC however, have found it quite difficult to defend this move, as the notion of transparency appears to be evaporating from the President’s demeanor since he took office.
As expected, a PDP sympathizer Post Nigeria contacted on the matter, said “150 cows should not be that difficult to verify, three modest houses as the President claims, should even be easier”.
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