SHEIKH GUMI AND MEAN EXCUSES.

By Zailani Bappa

Sheikh Ahmad Mahmood Gumi will not stop his baseless attack on PMB and his administration. In a report today, he was quoted as challenging PMB to swear by the Quran that public funds were not injected into his campaign in 2015. I consider this as mean and ridiculous as well.

In the first instance, anyone familiar with the workings of political parties will know that the Presidential candidate is not in control of how funds are raised by his Party nor how they were spent in campaigns. I am talking of true political Parties not the familiar PDP contraption. And APC in 2015 was more of a true Political Party in this regard. So how its funds were raised and spent was not under the control of PMB.

But PMB had a campaign group which emanated from the GMB Support Group and had raised funds to campaign for the President earlier. It instituted an appeal fund which raised money through the sale of scratch cards. I think they operated an account with First Bank PLC. PMB was in charge of this and had asked anyone to check its records on how this fund was raised and spent. Gumi is free to take this recourse than mess up in the media.

As for injecting public funds into the Party campaign for the President in 2015, many critics have raised this issue as a pointer to corruption. I could remember when PDP, early in 2016, alleged that the Director General of the APC Presidential campaign, Rotimi Amaechi, injected stolen Rivers State money into the campaign. There were many other charges such as this.

But if we are not all heading for mischief, we all know that there is a procedure of proving theft and there is a procedure in punishment. PMB has never deviated in this regard. In any case, PMB has never promised to turn Nigeria into an Utopia. He is not God. The God that created us is watching us as we flaunt ill gotten wealth on his religion in the name of "working for the sake of Allah".

Because wrong is done for the sake of one, it is not an excuse for him not to go after wrong. The earlier this so-called Sheikh understands this simple logic, the better for him and his followers. And it is time this Sheikh comes out and tell us his real grouse with the President.

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