Last Saturday, Aso Rock was bubbling with the creme de la creem of the ruling People Democratic Party in Abuja, who gathered to donate for President Goodluck Jonathan reelection campaign.
Donations for the President was
announced to a gleeful president and a shocked nation how the 21 governors who had been struggling to pay salaries long before the present oil crisis, rallied N50 million each in donation to the PDP.
In all, the PDP and the president raked in over N21 billion, with donations coming from government contractors, nameless associates, and Tunde Ayeni, the head of Skye Bank, who has bought a string of government assets, including the mega telecoms carrier, NITEL/MTEL, in a process that has already become controversial.
On Monday, Arabian Amlak Investment Limited, one of the 22 companies that bid for NITEL, filed a legal challenge, saying the Nigerian government, through the Bureau of Public Enterprises, deliberately skewed the privatisation process to favour Mr. Ayeni’s company.
As chairman of the PDP fund raiser, Mr. Ayeni donated N2 billion. He announced that he was donating N1 billion on behalf of himself and an unnamed partner, and another two billion on behalf of his friends. After a while, Mr. Ayeni returned to the podium to announce another donation of half a billion naira on behalf of himself and other players in the country’s power sector.