The African Democratic Congress (ADC) adopted by the former President Olusegun Obasanjo-led coalition has alleged that the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the President Muhammadu Buhari team were offering opposition parties N50mllion.
National Chairman of the ADC, Ralphs Nwosu, spoke when a meeting with a team of officials of the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute at the party’s headquarters in Abuja, on Wednesday.
He said: “Despite the poverty in the land, the ruling party and government have unlimited budget for bribing the electorate, electoral bodies and causing mischief.
“The APC and President Buhari’s team are presently sharing N50m to members of the opposition parties in an attempt to cause crises within the parties. I heard that they have upped that of ADC to N100m, but they will fail.”
He told the delegation that ADC currently had 6.5 million members with close to 10 million persons waiting to be registered.
The head of the team, Mr Christopher Fomunyoh, who is also the Regional Director, Central and West Africa of the NDI, said the team was in Nigeria to assess Nigeria’s level of preparedness for the 2019 elections.
He said, “We are currently visiting Nigeria to assess the level of preparations for the 2019 elections.
“It is our tradition to meet with all major stakeholders focusing on the electoral process. We also came to see what opportunities exist for future engagements.”
Reacting, National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Bolaji Abdullahi, stated that the allegation was an embarrassment to Nigeria.
“It is unfortunate that some Nigerians would think that they are playing opposition politics by making wild allegations before international organisations, that’s quite unfortunate”, he told Punch.
“These individuals making these wild allegations cannot give you one shred of evidence to back their claims. Let them name the person or persons that made them such an offer.
“At least, they must be able to name a person who is offering money to cause trouble within them. If you can go as far as making allegations that have far-reaching implications on the reputation of your country, if that means anything to you at all, he should be bold enough to back it up with evidence.”
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