– Says Osun, Ekiti States Under ‘Cash Crunch’
The Mimiko Campaign Organization in Ondo State is describing as an act of desperation the purported attempt by the leadership of the Action Congress of Nigeria to perfect an illegal ruse to buy votes and disenfranchise unsuspecting electorate in the state with fake dollar notes.
According to the organization, this was the highlight of plans held in Lagos on Tuesday evening, following what it said were “serious financial crises” confronting the party owing billions of naira already expended to prosecute the Ondo election. It said the financial burden is already taking a toll on the five ACN controlled States in the South West, which are the major contributors to the war chest.
The Organization, which oversees the campaign of Governor Olusegun Mimiko for a second term of office in a press statement said that the “dastard plan” of the ACN revealed that cash crunch that had hit the State of Osun as the State government had withdrawn huge amount of money from banks for the Ondo election in the last four weeks.
It stated that only last week, over N2billion was withdrawn from the State Government accounts in banks in Osogbo, the State capital while over N3billion was siphoned from Local Government accounts in Lagos State. The implications of this, MCO added was that LG workers in Lagos State won’t collect last month and this month’s salaries on time.
Ekiti, which has taken the unenviable position of the operational base of the onslaught against Ondo, is equally reeling under this yoke while its government and workers are at daggers drawn, it disclosed.
“Now that it has become glaring that the Ondo election would not be a push over owing to the huge popularity of Dr. Olusegun Mimiko whose rating has continued to soar, the ACN leaders have in their desperation to bribe voters, by buying at least 500 voters’ cards from each ward in the Ondo Central where Governor Mimiko comes from and where there is a high density of voters and pay other sundry expenses of those to be imported as thugs; pay fake Civil Defence corps members; fake Youth Corps members; fake policemen and army amongst others, they have resorted to use fake dollars.
“We are aware that fake dollars abound in the Oluwole area of Lagos where the leader of ACN grew up, they have decided to import tonnes of these fake dollars to pay those who would be bought over in their desperation who would not know the difference anyway thus eating their cake and having it,” MCO stated in a release signed by its Director of Publicity, Mr. Kolawole Olabisi.
The Mimiko campaign equally disclosed that to cover the obvious fact that its treasury was depleted and in the face of open protests from indigenes of these States who are already groaning under the effect of the cash crunch since the Ondo expedition began, a fund raising would be organised by AACN any moment from now to create the impression that they are spending money realised from this fund raising.
“But the truth is that the leaders of the ACN have placed a fatwah of sorts on those states that have refused to pay up. And the resultant effect of this is the spates of strikes by workers, local government workers, teachers; even students in all the five ACCN controlled States over unpaid salaries, entitlements, emoluments of teachers and pensioners, students’ bursaries etc.
“We want to warn the people of Ondo State to be wary of those who want to capture them as the ACN leaders have been openly boasting. They want to give them fake dollars, collect their cards, attempt to buy their votes and at the end of the day not only dupe them but send them to jail because the consequence of passing fake money is certain jail terms. So our people must like the popular saying goes, ‘shine your eyes’. If they bribe you, don’t take their money, it might be faked and you may go to prison for that if caught with fake dollars notes. And what this one shows at the end of the day is that they don’t care about you and would rather you rot in jails so far their desire to get your votes is attained. Dr Olusegun Mimiko would never do this being a governor with a caring heart.”