We Endorsed Jonathan As Our Presidential Candidate For FREE

Mr Kayode Ajulo, the National Secretary of the Labour Party in an interview with John Alechenu has challenged anyone who accused his party of collecting N300m from President Jonathan to endorse him as their presidential candidate in the March 28th presidential election to come out and prove it. According to Ajulo, President Jonathan was endorsed for free by his party and no money exchanged hands at all. Continue...

There is the news making the rounds that your party collected N100m to endorse Jonathan for the 2015 election.

Let me start by saying that this controversy has vindicated the Labour Party in the sense that immediately after endorsing the President, a lot of rumours began to go round. Some people said we were given N300m, some said N1bn and some even said $1bn; as I speak with you as a lawyer – on my honour – and I am sure because I have a good rapport and a good relationship with our party chairman, I am not aware that any money exchanged hands between the Presidency and my party. As the national secretary of the party, I am the number two person in the party hierarchy by order of protocol. No money exchanged hands between my chairman and the party. We have been vindicated. I did not receive any money from anybody. I challenge anybody who gave me or the party any amount of money to come out and say I gave Kayode Ajulo money for the election. Even when the allegation that a presidential aide was given money for our party came up, we read it in the papers like everybody else. I called my chairman and we held a meeting and resolved to get to the bottom of it. We are still trying to get where the whole thing is coming from. We, as members of the Labour Party, condemn inducement of any party. Whatever is to be given to the party must be in tandem with the Electoral Act.

Mr Kayode Ajulo also condemned a statement credited to APC that they had shut their doors to defecting politicians from other parties, especially PDP.

This is clearly a violation of the constitution. We are all aware when they (APC) applied to the Independent National Electoral Commission for registration. One of the conditions you have to meet before you are registered is that you have to subscribe to all the provisions of the constitution. In fact, every Nigerian political party is a product of the constitution and part of your undertaking is that you subscribe to the provisions of the constitution. For you to now start threatening to shut your door against people is a complete violation of that provision. A political party is not the property of any individual and that is why you have INEC regulating you. Everybody has a right of ingress and egress with certain conditions. You cannot say because somebody is coming today you want to shut your door. It is when a person misbehaves or violates some of your rules and regulations after becoming a member that you can now show them the way out either by suspension or expulsion – depending on the gravity of the offence. To now use a blanket cover to block some people, I think the party has overreached itself.