The Chairman of the Ogun State chapter of the Labour Party, Michael Ashade has accused Doyin Okupe, the party’s presidential campaign director of misappropriating N20 million meant for mobilisation fees for a rally in Oyo State.
The party chairman disclosed this on Saturday when he appeared on Arise TV.
According to him, Okupe gave him only N4 million out of the approved N20 million meant for mobilising members of the party to the presidential rally in Oyo in November.
He said the controversy regarding the mobilization fund led to the suspension of Okupe from the party by its Ogun chapter.
Last week, the state chapter of the party sacked Okupe and 10 others from the party for misconduct and non-payment of dues.
Meanwhile, the national secretary of the party, Umar Farouk, has dismissed Okupe’s sacking by the state chapter, saying due process was not followed.
Ashade said the issue goes beyond the non-payment of dues, adding that they “also highlighted certain deeds that occurred during the rally at Ibadan in which members in Ogun State were expected to be mobilised for that rally”.
“Certain financial anomalies occurred which we highlighted there. And we have discovered that certain amounts of money were approved for the states by the campaign council and we are asking where are the funds,” Ashade said.
Ashade said he still has a message Okupe sent to him “saying that he was personally paying the mobilisation of members from Ogun, Ekiti, Ondo, and Osun states for the Oyo state rally, saying that there is no official amount approved”.
“But N20 million was approved specifically for Ogun state to mobilise members,” he said.
He said 200 buses were estimated to take party members to Oyo but the proposal was turned down. He said after reducing the number to 100, Okupe rejected it, saying there was no fund officially made available to cater for the trip.
“He came up with an estimate of N5,195,000, saying that was what he could personally afford. But it was less than that. About four million was what was gathered,” Ashade said.
“It’s so appalling that (based on) the budget we did, every member that goes there, a certain amount should be given to them, at least N5,000 as a token. He said no, N1,000 will be given. I said that is ridiculous. I, as a chairman of the party, cannot be in that position and be giving N1,000 to every member who left their home to Ibadan, and he said it’s for feeding.”