Even among thieves, there is said to be honour, but ongoing investigations by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) into financial misdemeanors is throwing strange cases of short-changing among friends in the People Democratic Party (PDP).

It is emerging that the names of some of those being questioned were used to open accounts and withdrawals made from those accounts without their knowledge.

The disclosure from sources is coming even as journalist and former Senator, Chris Anyanwu, issued a statement yesterday to clarify her position in ongoing investigations into the disbursement of N700 million for presidential campaigns last year.

She insisted that she was neither a party official nor the presidential campaign coordinator for Imo State and therefore was in no position to collect or distribute funds for and on behalf of the party or indeed the candidate.

A statement by her media aide, Everest Ezihe, stated: “Consequently, let it be stated without ambiguity that Anyanwu did not witness the collection of any money belonging to the PDP for the purpose of prosecuting the 2015 presidential elections in Imo State and therefore could not have been involved in its distribution in any form, directly or indirectly.

“Anyanwu visited the EFCC offices in Enugu and made this position clear to the officials and was allowed to go home.
“It is true that Anyanwu was at some point nominated as one of two “persons of integrity” to oversight certain aspects of the activities of the presidential campaign team in Imo State, but she was never given the opportunity to play this role.

“Consequently, she was completely sidelined and shielded from all financial transactions and discussions.”
The statement insisted that she did not collect any money for the elections from any bank and she did not witness the collection of any money by anybody from such a bank.

“It is not beyond the investigative skills of the EFCC to track the alleged disbursements in order to arrive at the truth about who collected what, where, when and how.

“She will also be happy to assist the EFCC with whatever information at her disposal to help the process of getting to the truth about campaign funding for Imo State,” the statement added.

It was learnt in Abuja yesterday that following revelations from investigations, it was getting clear that some of those being questioned were undercut by other fellow party stalwarts who used their names to open accounts, made withdrawals from those accounts and allegedly distributed such funds without letting account signatories know what had transpired.

A source narrated in Abuja on how on a particular occasion, party stalwarts went to a bank to make withdrawals: “The others were kept outside the banking hall in the car while the withdrawal was mad, and the money carted away by other means while those outside did not know what went down.”