By Emmanuel Mogbede
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has disowned a purportedly leaked document claiming it budgeted N6.5 trillion for vote-buying to ensure victory at the 2023 presidential election.
Mr Felix Morka, the APC National Publicity Secretary in a statement on Monday in Abuja, described the document as fake and handiwork of mischief makers.
“The attention of the APC 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 N6.5trillion to fund schemes aimed at swaying 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.
“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,’’ Morka said.
He said the document was the handiwork of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in its desperate quest for unmerited electoral advantage by attempting to smear the APC with wrong doing.
Morka said that in its zealous attempt to mudsling, the document’s authors alleged that the APC proposed to spend nearly half of the country’s entire 2022 budget on vote-buying.
The APC scribe wondered how a government operating a national budget of N17 trillion would dole out N6.5trillion to rig election.
This, he said clearly betrayed the authors’ extreme ignorance of the complexity of the systems and processes for the appropriation and utilisation of state’s funds.
He said that the APC was focused on delivering dividends of democracy to Nigerians in hope that they would reciprocate by supporting and voting for its candidates in 2023 general elections.
He added that the party was law abiding and had no need to engage in fraud or electoral malpractice to win election as suggested by the document.
“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 Ekiti State governorship election,’’ Morka said.(NAN)
