Nigeria’s main opposition People’s Democratic Party said the bank accounts of its vice presidential candidate had been frozen in an act of intimidation by the government ahead of February general elections.
The accounts of Peter Obi, his wife, family members and their businesses had been blocked “by agencies” of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, the PDP said in a statement late Saturday.
The party said All Progressives Congress was using “smear campaigns” and “direct attacks” on Abubakar and Obi ahead of the vote, scheduled for Feb. 16.
“Since his nomination, Peter Obi, apart from facing a series of failed attempts to destroy his reputation, has also continued to receive all manner of threats and blackmail, including threats to his life and those of his wife and children.
“All discerning Nigerians know that the reasons for an investigation on a man like Peter Obi is a journey to no where but is aimed at stifling him of funds as well as attempt to distract our campaign and divert attention from the failures of the Buhari administration,” the party said.
Buhari who came to power in 2015 on the promise of fighting corruption has repeatedly been accused of merely using the fight on corruption as a front to cow political opponents. One former member of the president’s APC party, senator Shehu Sani left the party accusing the government of “treating corruption in the opposition with insecticide while treating corruption within the government with deodorant”.
And senator, Ben Murry-Bruce, a PDP chieftain, reacting to the news of the frozen accounts belong to Mr. Peter Obi tweeted from his verified Twitter handle,
Several allegations of corruption against officials of both the government and the president’s party involving even the vice president, Yemi Osinbajo and party chief, Adams Oshiomohole are yet to be investigated.
Below is the PDP official statement,
