Timi Frank, former Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, APC, has claimed that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration was planning to freeze the accounts of major opposition leaders ahead of the 2019 general elections to render the opposition party financially incapacitated.
The APC chieftain specifically named former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, Senate President Bukola Saraki, Rivers state Governor Ezenwo Nyesom Wike, Sokoto state Governor Aminu Tambuwal, National Chairman of PDP, Uche Secondu and former Governor of Kano state, Sen. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso among others, as victims of the purported plot.
In statement he personally signed and forwarded to DAILY POST on Thursday, Frank also mentioned the Speaker House of Representative, Yakubu Dogara, who is believed to be planning his exit from the APC soon, as another victim.
Apart from the major opposition leaders, Comrade Frank revealed that some businessmen and women who are sympathetic to the opposition parties are also targets of the said plot.
Recall that the account of the Benue State Government was recently frozen by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.
This happened soon after Governor Samuel Ortom dumped the ruling party for the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
Frank, who recently decamped to the PDP, alleged that the Buhari government was going this hard against opposition leaders but not aware that he “is surrounded by thieves who have looted the treasury even more than Abacha military government.”
The Bayelsa born politician, in the statement, said information at his disposal revealed that the APC government is using the EFCC to raise different allegations against major opposition leaders and serving governors across the country in order to demoralised the opposition leaders and render them incapacitated financially.
According to him, the recent reported freezing of the accounts of two PDP states (Benue and Akwa Ibom) formed part of the plot to ensure that states being controlled by the opposition parties were deprived from having resources to run government and blackmail them into joining the ruling party.
He challenged the rationale behind the freezing of Akwa Ibom state account barely few hours after a former governor of the state defected to the ruling party.
Frank alleged that the new bargaining power by the APC government was to blackmail those who are having one corruption allegation or the other into joining the party for such cases to be forgotten.
The former APC deputy spokesperson called on Nigerians and the international communities not to keep silence in the face of what he called “ongoing impunity and threat to democratic system of government in Nigeria”.
“Even though after serious pressures we gathered that EFCC had unfrozen the accounts they earlier illegally step down, we are in the known that they will soon start with private individuals but whatever game plan the ruling party might be plotting against the major opposition leaders and other private individuals, Nigerians will rise against it,” he said.
While warning the government not to embark on any act of illegality in desperation to win the 2019 election, Frank said Nigerians and international communities were fully aware of all the happenings in the country and will surely resist evil plot against the people.
