PDP chair, Kola Shittu, denies corruption allegations, says claim false

The Kwara state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party chairman, Kola Shittu, has denied allegations of financial irregularities against him by members of his executives, calling the claims “false”.

Some executives of the Party had alleged him of collecting money from eminent personalities on behalf of the party without account.

The allegations are riddled with lies, “I did not collect a dime from anyone”, he said late Friday.

“The people that were mentioned that I collected money from are all alive, they can be contacted if I used my office in collecting anything from them.

“Ahman Pategi gave us the sum of N500,000 naira and not N1.5 million naira which was shared among 39 executive members.

“His intention was to donate N2million but he dropped N500,000 with the intention of sending the balance at a later time. This was part of the allegation levelled against me, they thought I have taken the money, but that’s not the case the money was suppose to be collected by PDP Patigi and be remitted to the state account. I am not a person who would be running after people to collect money.”

On non-payment of executives allowance, he said, “It is a normal issue after we lost the 2019 elections in March, everybody went on low before we started picking up again bit by bit. Our state leader lost his reelection bid, we lost the governorship seat amongst other post.

“Usually after election, there would be setback, allowances which were meant to be paid by party members were not forthcoming, so I have been telling the excos to keep calm pending the time we are able to gather ourselves fully.”

PDP coming back stronger in Kwara – Kola Shittu

Meanwhile, Shittu has revealed that the party is bouncing back stronger ahead of subsequent elections.

He said modalities for reconciliations are being put in place and the party will now go for primary instead of consensus.

“The party has been working effectively before the election. We are on a reconciliation process, after our lost in the last election, the party excos sat down to look for the reason why we lost the election woefully. We have done meeting with our local government stakeholders at our party secretariat in Ilorin. We have gathered our lapses and we are seriously working on how we would not fall into it in forthcoming elections.

“Our party mode of selection is based on consensus but now we have decide that no matter the post one is contesting for a primary election would be contacted.”