The ‘tax collectors’ tag which Governer Onyesom Wike of Rivers State hung on the party will continue to haunt the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
According to the Buhari Media Organisation (BMO), this is regardless of PDP’s belated attempt to disprove claims by one of its key leaders that the party’s ticket for the last Governorship election in Edo State was sold to Governor Godwin Obaseki.
“We clearly understand why members of PDP’s former National Working Committee (NWC) opted to use the valedictory session held in their honour to clear their names, but we also know that not many Nigerians will take them seriously.
“We however find it ironic that the former party spokesman, Kola Ologbodiyan, dragged in PDP’s elective national convention in 2018 in a speech that largely centered around clearing the former NWC of trading in the ticket for a major election.
“So it was not surprising that Governor Wike who was at the receiving end at the time is the same person who called out PDP leaders two years later and tagged them ‘tax collectors'”.
“Which politically active Nigerian does not know that PDP raised N27bn at two fund raising events in 2012 and 2014 respectively for its secretariat which was estimated at about N16bn, but almost 10 years after construction began, the 12-storey building has yet to be completed.
“Speaking of EFCC and PDP, we recall that the Commission recently began an investigation into a N10bn fraud against the former NWC at the instance of one of its chieftains, Prince Kassim Afegbua.
BMO urged Nigerians to ignore the party’s latest efforts to hoodwink them with a new but empty slogan ahead of the 2023 election.