How Ogbulafor embezzled PDP funds, bought mansion for N700 million -Nnaji

Vincent Ogbulafor

A former National auditor of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), Mr. Ray Nnaji, has disclosed how the party’s national chairman, Prince Vincent Ogbulafor embezzled nomination fees of some PDP candidates when he (Ogbulafor) was the party’s national secretary.

Nnaji, who accused Ogbulafor concealing the actual value of his newly bought Abuja mansion, claimed Ogbulafor paid N700 million for the controversial mansion but sliced the value to N400 million to douse public outrage.

In a petition to the PDP National Working Committee (NWC), which was exclusively obtained by Pointblanknews.com, Nnaji, who was Ogbulafor‘s colleague in party’s defunct Working Committee, said the report of a committee headed by a Trustee of the party, Chief Tony Anenih, actually indicted Ogbulafor for graft thereby making him ineligible to hold any PDP office let alone that of the national chairman.

“At the end of their (Anenih’s panel) investigation, it was discovered that Prince Vincent Ogbulafor embezzled the nomination of some candidates for the primary election of that year (2003), of which Late Alhaji Inua Labaran, then National Organising Secretary, confirmed that some monies were paid Prince Ogbulafor through him for remittance into the party account, but Ogbulafor failed to do so,” complained Nnaji in the petition.

It was Ogbulafor’s admittance of pilfering party funds, wrote Nnaji that led to him offering in the presence of former President Olusegun Obasanjo and other PDP officers, to resign as party secretary. Ogbulafor also agreed to return the said monies to PDP coffers, but never did, wrote Nnaji.

According to Nnaji, the Anenih panel, which had as members the present deputy governor of Plateau State, Mrs. Pauline Tallen, among others, of all the serving members of the PDP National Working Committee at the time, only six officers including himself, National Woman Leader, Mrs. Josephine Anenih, National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Venatius Ikem and National Youth Leader, Alhaji Bibi Farouk, were exonerated.

Also exonerated of financial misdeeds by the Anenih committee, said Nnaji, were the National Financial Secretary, Mr. Toye Olafintoye, and the deputy National Secretary, Mr. Akpabio.

Nnaji expressed shock that the same Ogbulafor would, three years later, metamorphose into the national chairman of the same party whose finances he had tampered with simply because no screening was done before Ogbulafor’s emergence.

Not satisfied with the proceeds of his maneuvers with party funds, said Nnaji, Ogbulafor had the penchant for conniving with a certain lady supplier of diesel for the party secretariat’s generator set, to inflate the cost of the fuel, in addition to the several fronts he allegedly used to secure juicy contracts from the PDP secretariat.

Nnaji warned the party on the dangers on Ogbulafor’s continued stay in office as national chairman, particularly as he (Ogbulafor) have yet to disown his indictment by a report of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) for allegedly misappropriating over N104 million.

Nnaji, who requested the enforcement of Article 12.80 (a,b) of the PDP Constitution which deals with party discipline, said the controversy generated by Ogbulafor’s purchase of a N700 million mansion “but said to have demanded of a receipt for N400 million with the name of a proxy…has (raised) serious questions on the highest standards of morality” expected of the occupier of the seat of PDP national chairman.

“It is highly imperative that you intervene immediately by invoking Section 12.80 (a) and other relevant provisions of the party’s constitution in order to bring an immediate end to his (Ogbulafor’s) tenure to save our great party from total collapse, advised the party’s former national officer, adding, “the earlier Prince Vincent Ogbulafor is removed as PDP national chairman, the better for all of us.”