Lai didn’t fund 2019 Kwara elections, he lied – APC

The All Progressives Congress (APC), Kwara State chapter has said the claims by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, that he bankroll the 2019 general elections in the State was false.

Alhaji Mustapha Ishowo, the secretary of the party, made this known during a news conference in Ilorin, on Thursday.
Ishowo said anyone who knows Alhaji Lai Mohammed knows he cannot part with his kobo.

He added that AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq who was the then governorship candidate ran and led his own campaign across the state, day and night.

He said the Governor’s crime since the campaign period was to insist on mutual respect, equity, and transparent use of campaign funds.

Ishowo, however, condemned Lai Mohammed for what he described as “dictatorial and divisive tendencies.”

He said, “The then governorship candidate ran and led his own campaign across the state, day and night. This was heavily bankrolled by the candidate himself.

“He also donated hugely to the campaigns of other candidates, even when he had his own election to run. This is the fact, and any claim to the contrary by Alhaji Lai and his followers is synonymous with his widely acclaimed epithet: lies.”

“Alhaji Lai Mohammed’s claim that he funded the APC election campaign in 2019 is a fallacy. Anyone who knows Alhaji Lai Mohammed knows he cannot part with his kobo.

“The claim that he bankrolled the governor’s campaign is an empty boast that every serious party member and elder knew to be false. If anything, he was simply cornering party funds for personal promotion and use.

“The motorcycles he was talking about were donations to the party which he was forced to share after a tug of war and subtle threats of reporting him to the party’s national secretariat and the donors.

“Indeed, rather than warehouse such donated items at the party secretariat, they were kept at his LAMCO office. This shows his nature as a sectional and maximum ruler.”
Lai Mohammed had in an interview on Monday said that Governor AbdulRasaq had no money to fund his own election.

The minister had said: “If he (Governor AbdulRasaq) contributed, he contributed to his own pocket, not to my pool. I’m saying it and I challenge him. Did he give any money to the party for any logistics during the election? I’m going to give you a copy of the press release by the party, which the only person relied on for logistics was Lai Mohammed. I challenge him.

“I want to put on record, that when the president came to Kwara State, he was nowhere to be found. It was on the morning of the presidential arrival that I met him at the airport. Even the Ankara that he wore, I provided the money for it. I sent it to his house. Let him tell us who saw him when the president was coming to Kwara State for a presidential campaign.

“I was told he arrived the previous night and was talking about me trying to dehumanise him. Is that not a very petty mind? As I said, I raised funds for all four elections from friends and associates. I can say it on record that I gave money because I know what happens on election day. And I’m glad that many of them have not denied it. So when you talk about money, ask him: did he give one penny to the party for the election? How did he think he won the election? I raised money from friends, from family, from associates.”

In October 2002, Alhaji Lai Mohammed was a candidate for governor in the April 2003 Kwara State elections on the Alliance for Democracy platform.