$2.1bn arms deal: I won’t return N100m I collected from Anenih says Falae

Chairman of the Social Democratic Party, Olu Falae, says he will not refund the N100 million he collected from former PDP board of Trustees chairman, Tony Anenih. The said money has been linked to the $2.1 billion arms fund.

Speaking at a press conference in Abuja today, Falae speaking through the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Abdul Ahmed Isaiq‎, said the money was handed to his party by Anenih on behalf of PDP

He said the moeny was for the alliance his party entered with PDP to push for the successful re-election of former President Goodluck Jonathan. Falae added that there was no way he nor his party could have known that the money he received was from the money meant for the purchase of arms. He insisted that his party would not return any money to the government coffers, since the money it got was neither from Col. Dasuki nor Office of the National Security Adviser.

“In terms of refund of money, I want to say here that those people who are refunding money are those who got their money directly from the arms deal fund. Our fund did not come from the arms deal, our fund came from an electoral alliance with the PDP and we knew that the PDP had a fund raising committee that gathered billions of naira and PDP had been in government for 16 years. So, with that, we knew that the PDP had the capacity to fund the alliance that was formed with them by the SDP, he explained. You don’t postulate what you don’t have on the ground, you can’t build on a non foundation. We, as a political party knew that the PDP was a capable hand in the electoral alliance which we entered with them. And we equally knew that the PDP had a fund raising, where it generated over N20 billion down. So, whether the money came from Col. Sambo Dasuki or his office, is what we don’t know and it is left for them to ask Chief Tony Anenih to explain. We knew that the PDP had been ruling Nigeria for 16 years. So, this was the basis of our electoral alliance with them. We can’t refund any money to anybody because the money we got as a party came because of the alliance we had with the PDP and we have the agreement note from this alliance. If it is possible that the money Chief Anenih gave us was from the arms deal, it is left for them to ask Chief Anenih to clarify. As far as we knew, we did not have any dealing with Dasuki.  Our office did not ever have anything to do with the office or person of the National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki. ”he said