Oshiomhole hosted Buhari, Tinubu with N142 million, Edo govt denies claim, says vouchers were forged

All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential can­didate, Gen Muham­madu Buhari (rtd), and National Leader of the party, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, have been warned to stop visit­ing Edo State as the state’s treasury is al­legedly depleted any­time they were in town.

The Edo State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which issued the warning also lambasted Governor Adams Oshiom­hole, describing him as financially reckless and wasteful.

Edo State chairman of the PDP, Chief Dan Orbih, spoke on behalf of the party at Igboubazuwa, headquar­ters of Ovia South West Local Government Area of the state, during a rally organized to welcome de­fectors from the APC to the PDP.

Orbih displayed two Edo State Government vouchers with the follow­ing numbers, EXT/GOV/ GHSP/2441/14 and EXT/ GOV/GHSP/2477/14, which, he alleged, were used to sign out the sum of N76 and N66 million re­spectively for the commis­sioning of projects on No­vember 28 and 29, 2014.

“Governor Oshiomhole sat in his office and signed two vouchers to commis­sion projects on November 28 and 29, 2014. Written on the vouchers were these words: “Voucher to com­mission projects in Edo State by two eminent Ni­gerians, Retired General Muhammadu Buhari and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.” In those vouchers, the sum of N76 and N66 million were signed away simply to cut tapes for projects that had earlier been commissioned.

“How else do you define a corrupt governor? How can a government sign away N142 million just for Buhari and Tinubu to come to cut a tape? Never before in the history of this state have we witnessed this level of misappropria­tion of public funds. We are telling Buhari and Tinubu to stay away from Edo State because our accounts are usually emptied to mas­sage their over-bloated ego. What they have shown is that they do not love Edo State,” Orbih declared.

The Edo PDP chairman urged all sons and daugh­ters of the South-south geo-political zone, irrespective of their political affilia­tions, to rally round Presi­dent Goodluck Jonathan so that he would bring more development to the zone and the country at large.

Stoutly rising to debunk the claims, the Edo State government, through the Commissioner for Infor­mation, Mr Louis Odion, denied the PDP claims, saying they never expected that malice would push the PDP into forging vouchers to back their claims.

“With Comrade Adams Oshiomhole commission­ing world class projects all over Edo State in the last two months, we knew PDP would be gnashing their deformed teeth in envy. But we least expected that malice would push them into forging vouchers to back up a shameless lie in their evil desperation to tar­nish Oshiomhole’s golden records. But the Edo peo­ple are not deceived. They know that their governor is a very prudent man. The joke is on Edo PDP. Rather than show remorse by first apologizing to Edo people for under-developing the state for 10 years, they have resorted to peddling fake vouchers for a trans­action that existed in their crooked imagination,” Odi­on said.