‘Jime Cubana’ of Benue APC’ – PDP questions NSC boss’ offer to bankroll party’s campaigns in Benue

The Peoples Democratic Party, Benue State chapter, has faulted the recent comment credited to Rt. Hon Emmanuel Jime, the Executive Secretary of Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC), that he will bankroll the purchase of nomination forms for APC aspirants in Benue State for the 2023 elections.

Jime reportedly made the comment during the recent stakeholders meeting of All Progressives Congress (APC) meeting in Makurdi.

The PDP wondered if Jime is now the Obi Cubana of Benue considering the potentially high cost of nomination forms for the various elections.

This offer by the defeated 2019 Governorship candidate of the APC in Benue is so huge it could rightly be equated to the gesture recently made by the now famed Obi Cubana to youths of his Oba community.

The party in a statement by its spokesman in the state, Bemgba Iortyom, said aside the loud hint by Rt. Hon. Jime of a possible intention to embezzle public funds, his posturing in this manner also hints loudly at a drawing of battle line with Leader of the APC in Benue State, Senator George Akume.

The statement reads below.

Having pointed to the potential ‘Cubananess’, of Rt. Hon. Jime, the question which naturally arises is, how much is his legitimate earnings as ES of NSC that barely a month after assumption of office he is already promising to bankroll the campaign of APC aspirants in Benue State?

Isn’t this public posturing of the Shippers Council helmsman a loud hint at possible embezzlement of public funds without which he possibly can’t make good on such an ambitious offer?

Could any public official in Nigeria, including the president, without embezzling public funds, conveniently finance the campaign of numerous aspirants using only his salary and allowances?

Is this posture not out of character with the anti-corruption showboating of the APC led Buhari regime?

But aside the loud hint by Rt. Hon. Jime of a possible intention to embezzle public funds, his posturing in this manner also hints loudly at a drawing of battle line with Leader of the APC in Benue State, Senator George Akume.

It is common knowledge that there is no love lost between the duo owing largely to the contemptuous manner the later treated the former in the past, particularly during the 2015 Governorship primaries of the APC when Leader Akume snubbed Jime for the party’s ticket, handing it instead to Governor Samuel Ortom.

Rumblings inside Aso Rock indicate that the power clique around Mr. President have never taken the Benue APC Leader seriously, with the party’s crushing defeat at the 2019 elections in Benue State St the hands of PDP having worsened matters for him.

He is said to have found his way around to a Ministerial appointment but the cabal had made sure he didn’t get any worthwhile portfolio, consigning him to one which has little or no relevance at all.

It is the same cabal which is said to have now recruited Rt. Hon. Jime and armed him with the appointment as ES of the Nigerian Shippers Council, with the brief to take over the leadership of APC in Benue State and run Akume out of relevance in the party.

Their choice of Jime is deemed by pundits as perfect considering the bad blood running between him and Akume, and for the Shippers Council Executive Secretary to have come out so boldly to lay down the marker as the new financier of the opposition party in the state only lends strong credence to the rumoured game plan of the Aso Rock cabal against the estranged Buhari Minister.