By: Ngozi Anna Akunne
The ruling All Progressives Congress on Monday accused the Peoples Democratic Party of being the brain behind the rumour that the APC had earmarked N6.5 trillion to rig the 2023 general election.
This was disclosed in a leaked document tagged “leaked APC 2023 Election Document,” which had been circulating on social media.
The report claimed that the ruling party planned the whopping sum that is almost half of the entire country’s 2022 budget for vote-buying and bribing of security agents at polling units, judiciary and officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission.
Reacting to the allegation, the APC National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, described the leaked document as a figment of the opposition’s imagination.
Morka made the clarification in a statement issued at the party’s secretariat in Abuja on Monday.
The statement read, “The attention of the All Progressives Congress has been drawn to a document in circulation described as “leaked APC 2023 Election Document.”
“Mischievously, the document alleged that our party has voted a whopping N6.5 trillion to fund schemes aimed at swaying the Nigerian electorate to support and vote for the party and its presidential candidate in 2023. Ridiculously, too, the document alleged that obscene amounts of money have been voted for outright vote-buying; compromising INEC staff; security operatives; judicial officers and other officials.
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“The APC wishes to place firmly on record that the document is not of the party. We neither authored nor own any such document, and it certainly did not emanate from our party.
“Indubitably, the document is the handiwork of very sick elements of the opposition PDP in a desperate quest for unmerited electoral advantage by attempting to smear our party with wrongdoing.”
Morka disclosed that in their authors’ ‘senseless’ attempt to mudsling the APC, they alleged that the party proposes to apply nearly half of the country’s entire 2022 budget to buy votes.
According to him, the document clearly betrays the authors’ extreme ignorance of the complexity of the systems and processes for the appropriation and utilization of state funds.
“How in the world does a government operating a national budget of N17 trillion dole out N6.5 trillion to rig elections? Our party is focused on delivering the dividends of democracy to Nigerians in hope that they will reciprocate by supporting and voting for our candidates come 2023 elections.
“We are a law-abiding party and have no need to engage in any fraud and electoral malpractice suggested in that worthless document. Only a party that is a masterful looter of the national treasury such as the PDP can even imagine another capable of engaging in the kinds of atrocious acts the document suggests.
“We urge Nigerians to disregard the document as sleazy propaganda for which the PDP has gained notoriety. The APC remains committed to building an innovative system of free and credible elections as witnessed in the recently concluded Governorship elections in Ekiti state,” he stated.
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