Keyamo Refutes Report That NNPC Paid Him N450m To Launder Buhari’s Image

Festus Keyamo, Director of Strategic Communications (Spokesperson) of the President Muhammadu Buhari Campaign Organisation, has denied report that he was paid N450million reportedly by NNPC to launder Buhari’s image ahead the 2019 presidential election.

A news report making the round (Not from BigPen Online) had alleged that Keyamo had received the sum as part payment of the N7.5billion proposal he reportedly gave NNPC GMD, Maikanti Baru to cover money for Tv ads, social media ads, payment of social media influencers nationwide, payment of media owners, editors, columnists and notable journalists in the country under the subheading of PR and other expenses

But dismissing the claims, Keyamo in a statement obtained by BigPen Online on Thursday, said it was no true that he received the sum of money from the NNPC and submitted yet another larger budget to the same corporation to run the media and publicity department of the campaign.

According to him, the story is the classic example of the many rots in the system that President Muhammadu Buhari is determined to address.

He said: “It used to be the case during the era of PDP at the center that election periods are always seen as time for bazaar and jamboree when the public treasury is opened for soothsayers, witchdoctors, fraudsters, prostitutes, party loyalists, and all kinds of funny characters to feast upon.

“Hence, between January and the time of the elections in 2015, the PDP opened the treasury and withdrew  One Hundred Billion Naira (N100,000,000,000.00)that was shared to all kinds of characters. It is this same tendency they exhibited and still have that they now attempt to attribute to us.

“If anything at all, the experience of the loss of the PDP in 2015 has taught everyone a bitter lesson: the sharing of money does not win elections and we do not intend to go that route.

“We shall continue to showcase the achievements of President Muhammadu Buhari to convince Nigerians that he deserves a second term in office. As we speak, the commissioning of the completed Port Harcourt International airport is ongoing.

“For the avoidance of doubt, my participation in this campaign is part of my larger crusade to enthrone an accountable government and true democracy in our polity. To me this is not just a campaign but a crusade, hence I came out of my shell to make a full-blown participation in the process.

“I am determined to make my little contribution to prevent those who have looted our treasury in the past to establish “big businesses” that they now flaunt in our faces and who have been indicted both locally and internationally from staging a comeback to power.

“In the process, my hard-earned integrity would be guarded jealously. I have not and will not go near the public purse and the President’s Campaign Organisation will not do so either”, Mr. Keyamo said.

Meanwhile, this is coming as the Federal Government says it is engaging foreign media organisations, networks and think tanks to correct the negative narratives about the country and President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.

The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, disclosed this in London after an engagement with the Royal African Society, a body founded in 1990 to promote relations between the UK and Africa.

Specifically, the minister said that the engagement was to shape their minds and opinions on the true position of insurgency in the North East, farmers/herdsmen clash and the achievements recorded by the Buhari administration which were being downplayed.

The News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, reports that the minister made the assertion while delivering a lecture in Chatham House, the UK-based Royal Institute of International Affairs.

He also interacted with foreign and Commonwealth Office officials, All Party Parliamentary Group and featured on Aljazeera television news hour.

The minister also met with the largest global news agency, Reuters, New African and African Business Magazines and African Report.

Mohammed said that the whole essence of the engagements was to correct the negative narratives about the country and place on the table the giant strides of the Buhari government.